Why is it so hard to be a gaming parent.

Recently I have been getting the itch, the itch that says I have been away from tabletop gaming for too long. Having two young children however does not make this easy. Now I'm sure there are those who are saying what's the problem here, set a day aside and go out to a local club or group and hang out and chill for a few hours. Now here is how it is for me, I work a job where I am working sometimes very long shifts that do not have set days. I also do not like leaving my wife for several hours in the evening to try and get both tykes to sleep on her own, especially when I have been at work all day.You could say at the end of the day I do feel guilty about going out as my wife has recently decided to leave work to be the primary carer for the children and as such doesn't get a lot of  free time to herself, I'm sure this is a common problem with a lot of spouses as well.

So some of you out there are going ok so why not do it from the comfort of your own home. The internet is great for rpg's nowadays what with all the online tabletop programs why not  just do a game online. Well here is the next problem, my kids ... don't really have a set bed time. Now before someone rants at me, at the moment my eldest is not even 3 and is not in preschool and gets plenty of sleep and so you know no bigge, So long as my eldest is in bed and trying to go to sleep by 10 I'm happy, Also we are a co sleeping family so its not a case of me dumping them in bed and letting them scream it out. The other one my lil daughter is not even a year so she's a temperamental sleeper at best. Getting back on topic this obviously means there will be little ones trying to get my attention whilst gaming which can be a distracting for other players. SO yeah lots of problems to overcome but where to start.

Here was my great plan I would assemble a group of friends to game with at a non fixed time every 2 weeks or so and I would be the GM. Why am I the GM? Simple, I am the person with the kids its me who is struggling to commit to a group so I will run the game so I can set the time and day we play etc so this sounds great. Turns out not so much. It seems that putting a group together to game has been somewhat difficult, so far I have encountered players who don't want to play the games I want to run  (who doesn't want to do Iron Kingdoms I mean seriously). I have players unwilling to commit because of not wanting to put some time aside every 2 weeks to a random date we'd all set. Setting a day hasn't helped with that either as the only other day I have off consistently is Sunday and that's when it seems to be everyone else's games night (fair enough). My favourite one of all is that the ones who are interested and never get back to me at all when I'm setting up dates for games.

So now at my wits end unable to even get a random one shot game going by placing a call out amongst my peers has now driven me to despair, What is one supposed to do to get a game going, are there any other gamer parents out there having the same problems and trying to come up with solutions? Or maybe do we need a place for hard working parents with little free time to get together somewhere online and sought out gaming groups. A place where we can set up our groups and say This is what free time I have what can you guys do lets get together like every two weeks and adventure.

Hi I'm Fen Tiger and I would love to run a iron kingdoms game every 2 weeks for some folks if they don't mind gaming between half 6 and half 8pm GMT.. Also please be warned there will be screaming munchkins from time to time.

Minecraft is one adictive game.

So 2 months into the new year and i and my wife have discovered that minecraft is hella adictive.
So addictive that we now have our own server. Just a little one but fun none the less it is now covered in small towns, art peices and monolithic subway tunnels that stretch from on continent to another.  Of course this has kinda killed my abbility to effectivly build and run a gaming session, that or maybe uts tye fact that sesion 1 of the star wars campaign involved character creation. Character creation usualy tends to slow things down.
But none the less players seem pumped about star ware campaign so thats all good.

In campaign news the party has just landed on the planet Entora and are currently proceding with a murder investigation. Personal opinion so far is game felt rushed this probaly due to charcter creation taking so long and the fact i moved players along quickly. My players are like kids with add you have to keep them a lil on track or they will begin to wander. Also i. Think some of my players dont enjoy the investigation parts i run. My getran gamer does as this is something completly new for him, compared to hack and slash games. Other newer players honestly want to get into the action faster.

Recently ive had the chance to play in my freind robs d&d games. These sessions are a new experience for me. Why you ask well ive come to the conclusion that i go too easy on players. Rob is ready to send em diving in to the fiery pits of hell 98% of the time litteraly. Hes not affraid or the liberal use of traps every 50ft or so. Apparajtly guards know what smugglers boots look like (i dont know how a normal pair of boots with a hidden pocket look shifty hut hey wont argue lil things like that as that would slow down game). His encoujters are more intresting than a straight up fight which i must do more often. Also on a side note i am apparently good at creepy shit after he came to me with an idea for something creepy and i made it creepier. Should add creepier shit into my games. Horray for fucked up sith things. Anyways ive gotten to work so ill sign off for now. Later people.

The campaign so far: Keeping the peace.

So finnaly to recap on my "new" campaign. Keeping the peace is set on a continent where 2 major nations rules most of the land. In the middle of them is a Neutral area. Land what acts as a buffer between the two warring nations, In this neutral area is set this campaign in a City state situated i nthe centre of the two waring nations.

In the 1st session (the run through) in entered our 1st two adventurers out of the snow. Ewan Mccloud, a Aasimar Paladin with a mysterious past. Neko, A catfolk rogue looking for profit and adventure.
These two promptly began there adventure to rescue The cities rulers daughtwer and find out what had happened to the caravans on route to the city. They found out that marauding Orcs had kidnapped her and thus they went to her rescue. Upon arriving the two heroes fast talked there way in to find the leader of the Orcs, Mathew a half-orc had been using the girl and other enslaved women for his own needs. A fight broke out and our heroes barely made it out with there lives but none the less the day was saved. Other crazy misisons ensued with a spot of tomb raiding what saw the Paladin almost drowned to death and a airship crashland near the City. Also after capturing a Goblin they foiund out that the Goblins had a White Dragon at there disposal.

The next few sessions saw our heroes and a new arrival, a Orc Fighter a few months later dealing with the same situation in which Caravans from the North were not arriving in the city so our heroes go out to investigate only to find that the Goblins are now raiding caravans along with Orcs. Shocking. So the heroes after capturing another Goblin they who tells em the locatipon of the Goblin base they go do soem reconicense.

Unfortunatly they find more than they bargained for in the caves. Gnomes building a secret weapon, well trained Goblin forces, Also a new companion arrived in the The Dwarven Ranger Gangrim. Together the reconend the rest of the cave/lair to find at the end a meetign betwwen the Goblin leader and his allies. A human mercenary, a silver haired owman, Orc war chiefs, goblin chiefs, Gnome engineers. Oh and as I forgot to mention the Grand leader is a Goblin - half white dragon whos half brother a full blown white dragon accompanies him.

SO the party get the information on the current opperations and begin to shut them down 1st off freeing the Kobolds from the Goblins i nthe mountains. Secondly stopping the undead threat. acctualy the undead threat turned out to be nothing more than a trap set up by the MErcenary Captain to trap doo gooder adventurers. Now currently they are trying to negotiate with Orcs to have them join there side.

In the middle of al lthis Gangrim is currently trying to create his own orginsation to take down the thieves guild so that he can take over there territory. Neko a member of the thieves guild is stuck between loyalties to th thieves and the assasins.

But anyway the 1st half of the campaign is set to end when the army of Monstorus creatures decends upon the City.

If you want to check out more please head on over to Obsidian Portal to check out my campaign which will give a more in depth view into my campaign also you can read Gangrims Journal in the players log session if you want a good laugh at what our crazy dwarf gets up to. Gangrim is played by my newest player and a 1st time table top RPGer. I can safetly say he is one of the most enthusiastic player I have had so far always comming to me with new crazy schemes.

Oh also just to shamesly plug cause well its my blog who the hell cares please also go check out my friends campaign over on obsidian Portal Caladon. compared to my crappy page his is 100% solid Platinum.

Of Gods and men part 3

Wow. I really need to keep on top of blogging huh. Well hey there folks im back once more. I had a lil blogging hiatus as well ... I'M LAZY OK!
But yeah mving on with regards to my new campaign (which is now known as Keeping the peace) is going strong. We have had players drop and new players join but all in all it is a fun romp through the world. I will post  later on about what's going on and the current group later but for now lets get back to THE GODS!

The sisters (Lilith, Aldornia, Ostrogotho)- goddesses of evil dragons
Greater Deities
Symbol:3 headed dragon
Home Plane:
Alignment: Evil
Worshippers: Evil Dragons
Cleric Alignments:LE (Lilith), CE (Aldornia), NE (Ostrogotho)
Domains:
Favoured Weapons: 

The Sisters as they are known are Tiamats successors. Also known as the daughters of tiamat these 3 half dragons now collectively control her power. It was they who helped slay many of the old gods and they who made bahamut disappear.

Stefryanous – God of Moral and Logical Truths
Greater Deity
Symbol:Four Pointed Star
Home Plane:
Alignment: Neutral Good
Worshippers: The good and open minded
Cleric Alignments:Any Good
Domains: Good, Healing, Strength, Knowledge, Protection, Sun
Favored Weapons: Two-bladed Sword

Not a great deal is known about this new god, which in itself suggests that before ascension he was of humble or at least unknown status. What is known is that he asks nothing of his followers other than that they follow the path of good. He seems to prefer reasoning with both logic and morality making him popular with lawful and chaotic alike. His seemingly soft nature however has led to conflict between his followers and those of Azeroth, whether there’s conflict between the gods themselves is unknown. It is mused that he must have been chosen to ascend for a reason and that his weapon of choice suggests there’s more to him than is currently known.

Now Stefryanous is not my creation. He is a god Al designed fr the campaign based on this charming fellow. Al wanted a god to fit his Paladin  of Freedom, as none of the gods i had designed took his fancy I gave al the leeway to create a new God provided he set up his back story, domains, worshipers, favoured weapon. Basicaly all the Stuff i was too lazy to do. 

any way this is where  ishall elave off for now. Until next year .. probably.

Of Gods and Men part 2

Azeroth – God of Law and Human Purity
Greater Deity
Symbol:A Generic Human
Home Plane:
Alignment: Lawful
Worshippers: Humans, Asimar
Cleric Alignments: LG, LE, LN
Domains: Good, Evil, War, Law, Strength, Destruction
Favoured Weapons: Halberd

Azeroth is the law bringer and slayer of Pelor. He is the patron of the Empire of Azeroth which he founded in his Mortal days. Azeroth created a pure human society, no off shoots. No Half elves, no shifters, no teiflings. The only exception to this rule has been the asimar who after his ascension are believed to be blessed by Azeroth. Azeroth from his youth believed those who were not pure human to be a weakness. He also sees other races as lesser beings to humans.
His pet hate is Demons and even though he permits other races and half casts to live (albeit a second class citizens i nhis eyes) demons and those with demon blood in there veins are abominations and must be purged from the world.
He Slew Pelor for believing him to be too soft upon law breakers and took his power for his own.

Binar – God of Warforged, Knowledge, innovation
Greater Deity
Symbol:warforged face
Home Plane:Forgeria
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Worshippers: Warforged, Inventors, Scholars
Cleric Alignments: LN
Domains: Law, Knowledge, Magic
Favoured Weapons: Warhammer

Binar is the 1st construct to ever achieve god hood. He destroyed the creation forges which the old nations were using to create warforged slaves. He then led a rebellion what lasted 100 years until he ascended. He constructed a plane which was one enormous creation forge from which new warforged are created and are sent to the mortal plane every 20 years. Only 20 warforged are sent to the realm every 20 years however there is a legend of a island made of metal where hundreds if not thousands of warforged lives.

Drachenstien – God of good dragons
Greater Deity
Symbol:Silver Dragons Claw
Home Plane:
Alignment: Good
Worshippers: Orcs, warriors
Cleric Alignments:LG, CG, NG
Domains: Good, War, Law, chaos, Strength, protection, Healing
Favoured Weapons: Maul

Drachenstien is a dragonborn, his original name has been lost in time. He ascended to god hood after defeating Tiamat and was ready to take his side at his masters side when he found he had disappeared. No body could be found with the other bodies of the recently deceased gods in the astral plane. He now has his servants seek out clues to Bahamuts whereabouts. so far he has had no success. His rivals are the Granddaughters of tiamat the 5 half dragon sisters who have taken timamts power in her stead.

Of gods and men

Hey folks well I gotta say im failing at blogging huh. My audio blogs are mia till i can find a new host and yeah. But non the less I have come to inform you good mortals that I am still alive and working on stuff.

So a few months back we started a new D&D non IK game entitled a land of high adventure(soon to be named the new age).
This was a all day trial run of using sanity in old 3.5 d20 and to test out what I had so far for concepts Orcs with honour stumped my players.
But yeah Currently i am building upon the campaign. The plan is to change round alot of things. 1st of Which is the Patheons.

I Have Decided some time ago there was a god war. The Mysterious over pantheon helped Mortals upon the physical plane gain god hood and slowly they grew in power until they came into conflict with the old gods. The old Gods are now dead, in hiding, exiled to the mortal plane or imprisoned.

SO now the new Gods rule over the mortal plane and the inhabitants have adapted to this regime change. infact under the new gods alot of advancement has begun. New technologies, ideas, etc.

But For now lets look at the new players.

Baadish - New Orc God

Greater Deity

Symbol:
Home Plane:
Alignment: Lawful Good
Worshippers: Orcs, warriors
Cleric Alignments: LG
Domains: Good, War, Law, Strength
Favoured Weapons: Great sword

 Baadish was a Orc revolutionary who carved out a Orc kingdom and helped Drachenstien and Felis Slay Tiamat. Fought and defeated Gruumsh and imprisoned him deep within the earth.

He is opposed to Azeroth. When they were still Mortals Azeroth and Baadish were oppossed to each other as Azeroth viewed non humans as lower forms of life and had no problems exterminating there kind. The 2 gods still are set against each otheras Azeroths ideals are carried on by his worshippers.

FELIS - God of the Hunt and Catfolk

Intermediate Deity 
Symbol:Cats Paw
Home Plane: Savana
Alignment: Neutral
Worshippers: Catfolk, Rangers, Hunters

Cleric Alignments: NG NN NE
Domains: Animal, Plant, Luck, Travel, Strength
Favoured Weapons:Javelin

Felis the god of Catfolk and hunting. He was a ranger in his former life and enjoyed tracking down big game and bringing fame to his tribe for having the most skilled hunters. Was one of the 3 heroes (who also later became deities) to defeat Tiamat. Lives on the Plane Savana where there are many great areas to hunt game.

Lets talk AVP (also known as birthday weekend and me and the boyhs are ranting)

So here it is my 1st 30 minute audio rant with me and the guys.
I would have had this out sunday or even Friday of my bday weekend but when we were recording and i went to hit stop audacity crashed meaning I have had to restore it through 150 or so temp files. Oh and audacity does not have a auto recover function.

So here it is Fens audio rant starring: Me Fen
                                                       Zozh
                                                       Sam
                                                       Luca

In this rant we mostly talk abiut the new game Alien versus Predator as well as.

• Dawn of War 2
• Nomis
• I phones
• PS3 blackouts
• Fanboyism
• Iron Kingdoms

And many more.
Warning Spoilers in this audio rat (or semi spoilers in Zozhs case)
Enjoy Fen


Download              

Go To FileFactory.com

Whats going on after thj witchfire Campaign (also titled OMFG I FORGOT TO )UPDATE WEEKS AGO)

Ok so i  was meant to update this weeks back but im a very busy man so I apologise. This audio rant / voice blog / whatever is basicaly talking abvout what i have been after the Wtichfire Trillogy what is not alot since i have kinda been hella busy with work and other things. But anway to make up for things i am also going to be posting the last session as a live play (that my players didn't know  i was recording muahahaha). So until then enjoy my voice later.

.....

Oh yeah here is the link

The Witchfire Trilogy the conclusion

WARNING
This audio rant contains spoilers you have been warned download the witchfire grand conclusion.

Download here

Witchfire legion of lost souls run throughj part 1 *WARNING SPOILERS*

So Yeah i got bored terying to write up 2 months of gamming sessions in one go so i did this instead. I ranted over my microphone. I am also joined by al and Dave near the end. Enjoy

You can download the audio rant from here.
Download witchfire lols recap part 1.mp3 from FileFactory.com

The Red Warmachine statistics part 2

Continuing in my feature on my ideas for Unit conversions (albeit later than I hoped) so now we have the Assault Kommandos. The Assault Kommandos are a fun unit however I have found there carbine is annoyign weapon to stat up. Its stated it has a Grenade launcher atached to it thats no problem however then the gunblade on the bottom is a pain as rifles in the IK rules aren't really meant to be gunblades however I made an exception for the Carbine.

So anyways without Further Ado here are the Assault Kommandos stats.

Race: Human (khardic)

Level: Fighter 6

Hit points: 6D10+12

AC:21

Initiative: +6

Speed: 20Ft

BAB: +6/+1

Saves: FORT: 7 REF: 4 WILL: 2

Abilities: STR 16 DEX 14 CON 14 WIS 10 INT 10 CHA 10

Skills: Craft (small arms) +5, Intimidate +3, Jump +3, Move Silently +3, Hide +3, Survival +4

Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Small Arms), Tower Shield Proficiency, Improved Shield Bash, Rifleman, Weapon focus (rifle), Point Blank Shot, Run, Shield Wall, Improved Initiative

Equipment: Spiked Tower Shield, Assault Kommandos Carbine, Assault Kommandos armour, Assault Kommandos gas mask, Smoke Grenades.

Assault Kommandos Carbine: same stats as a Normal Carbine (See Iron Kingdoms character Guide) but has a Grenade Launcher attached to the bottom. The Grenade Launcher needs a Craft Demolitions check of DC 10 to reload it. On top of that it has a blade attached to the weapon which has the same stats as a short sword and can be used in melee with a -2 penalty to hit.

Assault Kommandos Gas Mask: Is a combination of the Alchemists beard (Liber Mechanika) and the Mist peircer goggles (No Quater #20 page 53).

Assault Kommando armour is treated as a breastplate (see phb)

The red warmachines statistics part 1

Hey folks fen here getting back on track with blogging I still have to write up a review of last game but that will be up in the next few days.
Today I bring you the 1st in a series of posts where im going to try and give my own thoughts on 3.5 representation of units from warmachine. Essentialy this is me giving them stats so I can use them in future games. This is not going to be me saying this is how they should be but my own thoughts and ideas, I will be defiantly staying away from characters like yuri and the great bears and warcasters. I feel giving named characters stats is a stupid idea as your players are more likely to try and kill them.
One last thing if I don't stat up certain units like iron fangs then they already have there stats in a no quarter somewhere.

Ok now lets get down to businesses 1st up is one of my favourite units in the red army known as Khador the Manhunter.

Name: Manhunter

Race: Human (Khardic)

Class: Ranger 9

HP: 77 (6d8+5)

AC: 17 (10+4+3)

Initiative: 8 (4+4)

Speed: 30ft

Ability		Modifer
STR	18	4
DEX	18	4
Con	14	2
Wis	14	2
Int	12	1
Cha	10	0

Base attack Bonus: 9/4

Saves: Fort : 8 (6+2)
Will: 5 (3+2)
Ref: 10 (6+4)

Skills: Hide 12, Knowledge nature 8, knowledge tactics 3, knowledge geography 7, listen 12, Move Silently 12, search 12, spot 12, survival 12, climb 3, swim 3

Feats and abilities: Favoured enemy (human), track, Wild empathy, Favoured terrain (artic), Alertness, endurance, Woodland stride, evasion, favoured terrain (forest), weapon proficiency (simple, martial), armour proficiency (light , medium, shields), improved initiative, two weapon fighting, combat reflexes, stealthy, toughness, weapon focus battleaxe, weapon specialisation

Equipment: 2 battle axes (1d8+6, X3), Rations, hide armour

Initialy I was going to make them barbarians but then I went and re-read the manhunters backstory. These guys and gals are hunters who have taken up hunting the deadliest game ... MAN!!!
So I changed them to the Iron Kingdoms ranger variant. I then geared them towards being the mightiest hunters of Khador. there hide is at modest 18 (4 from DEX + 12 ranks in hide + 2 for stealthy) making them difficult to spot and with track, spot, listen and search maxed out they'll be difficult to shake. Manhunters are weapon masters so I gave them weapon focus and specialisation.
I made them 9th level as iron fangs are level 6 and as there a specially trained unit I thought manhunters should be a few levels higher. My thoughts for this were that manhunters as solos are capable of dispatching a unit of grunts like say trenchers. also it allowed me to give them there second bonus terrain. I chose artic and forests as that's what Khador has a lot of snow and trees.
If you want to lower or up the levels go ahead comments and criticism welcome.

And if anyone is intrested on my thoughts of yuri I would say11th/3rd level IK ranger with 1 or 2 levels of barbarian.

Death in the Party

I figured I hsould start like that a awesome pic of Colbert. Would like to point out I demand more Colbert report on British TV and the Daily show. Those shows make my laugh so loud I defended the entire county with my sonic laughter.

So this week has been madness It was Columbus day monday and all the Americans from the bases came to my store what a afternoon and due to circumstances I was working still 2 hours after my shift ended.

but anyway to the D&D stuff.
There was a death last week.
Scarlett (our ranged fighter) and alain (our arcane maechanik)were sent to go take care of some mysterious goings on. Along with a group of hired muscle they found where the strange interlopers were hiding outside of town.
What they didnt know is that inside the hideout were a cryxian sorcerer, a satxyis sorcerer/fighter, a blighted trollkin barbarian and 12 mechanithralls.
They fought through the 1st wave but had to pull back after the second wave surprised them and taken out one of there companions. So they went back the next day and charged in head 1st the extra acompniment of Mercenaries jumping on the mechanithralls.
They 1st took on the blighted Trollkin who packed a punch but was no match for alain and Scarlet.
They managed to sneak into the room with the satyxis and the sorceress unfortunately Alain wasnt as good at hiding and was found hiding behind a rock and as a the satyxis set sights on him Scarlet sniped away from behind her rock. and after getting a few scratches from the satxyis she defeated and just the Sorceress left. She let out a HUGE fireball spell which took most of scarletts and alains health away. Scarlet managed to score a direct hit on the sorceress but not before Alain was struck by a ray spell and died and thus ends Alains travels as Scarlet pocketed his goods and left his corpse to rot.

Ah yes what a adventure up next though ... Well I cant decide either to do the umbral spiral or the legion of lost souls of well tommorow I shall make my decision.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH and some Ik bloggyness

So im having a bad weekend as i sit here a 1 am and i gotta be up at 5 ish and at work at 8 till very late possibly even later like that Watching the Watchmen (oh yeah) and being pretty fuming. Mainly cause well one of the guys at work has not showed up for 2 whole days. Also known as the FREAKING WEEKEND, also known as OUR BUSIEST TIME!!!.

Had to do a damn close by myself on a Saturday and well now we dont know where he is so if he dont show up tomorrow I gotta do his close Saturday so that means no freaking D&D possibly maybe ... GAH!!!

But anyway ive now vented down to what happened. So after talking with mr Selly one night about what I should do with 3 of the our 6 players who were showing up that week (selly was one of the lads not showing up that week). and I was vbouncing off ideas and selly came up with why not split em up make em work hard. Uhh yeah that a tough thing to do but we gave it a whirl. So I set a great scene in Corivs under Lockdown in a nice quiet tavern when a sorceror being hutned down by the inquisitors and the watch burtst in all hell breaks loose 2 off the party are carted off to jail.
So our gun ho fighter and our gun mage are locked up and not really tryign to get out. Whilst The Arcane Mechanik has formulated a plan he just needs a way in.
And he found in his workshop along with his flamethrower. 2 Warjacks minus cortexes. And he jsut happened to stumble across a old one (need to work out how degraded it is). so Yeah off al goes with his Mule and essentially breaks intoo jail and rescues the guys plus a Arcane Tempest gun Mage.

Course I didnt make the escape easy hell al had a problem handling the jack with his low pointsi n Jack handling but he did ok.
And ofr fun I gave them one hell of a end fight them, there Mule vs Skorne warriors a pain giver and a titan. Yeah it was awesome. Unfortunately the skorne never really got in the game as the mules stray shot ripped them to shreds.
But a fun tie was had by al land now al isl ooking towards Warcaster as a end game resiult.

Also they were askign where they go after the witchfire i said about my idea of the merc company and they seem to like that idea. So were off to fight the Kahrds (probaly).

Right im off to bed night.

All hail privateerpress. Now the rest of you may enjoy The Iron Kingdoms

Thats Right 2 days Ago Privateer Press made this announcment.

Embark upon a journey into the realm of Full Metal Fantasy with the complete set of Iron Kingdom RPG source books, many of which have been out of print for over a year, now available in PDF for the first time. These highly sought after volumes contain detailed information on role playing in the unique setting of the Iron Kingdoms and provide a wealth of historical, cultural, and political information on the nations, peoples, and creatures that call Western Immoren home.

Perfect for WARMACHINE and HORDES players as well as RPG players with discerning tastes, the entire Iron Kingdom RPG line is available now from www.drivethroughrpg.com and www.paizo.com including:

* Witchfire Trilogy Collected Edition
* Monsternomicon Vol.1: Denizens of the Iron Kingdoms
* Monsternomicon Vol.2: The Iron Kingdoms and Beyond
* Iron Kingdoms Character Guide, Full Metal Fantasy
* Iron Kingdoms World Guide, Full Metal Fantasy
* Liber Mechanika, Full Metal Fantasy
* Five Fingers: Port of Deceit, Full Metal Fantasy

Don’t miss out on this second chance to own the books that started it all. Head on over to DriveThruRPG or Paizo and complete your Iron Kingdom library today!

(original source at Privateer Press)

I know this has made alot of the IKRPG forum community happy as we can now get copies of some REALLY hard to find books. The PDF's are apparently REALLY well bookmarked so its easy to find that hard to fnd obscure bit of information what slows down your ENTIRE game.

One thing a few people on the Privateer Press Forums have been maoning about is the price. The PDF's are going for about $30 what works out as roughly £18. Now I say this is not a problem for me. Privateer press has to still pay people for there creative works i nthis book etc. Not to mention Im sure sales of these books will contribute to there own RPG system.

Oh did I forget to mention privateer have announced that there workign on a in house RPG system. YOu can find the information in there forums (thansk again Doug ^^).

So there we have it. If you want to try the Iron Kingdoms For yourself then Please go ahead and initialy Grab the WitchFire Trilogy thats a good place to start if yo uwant a new awesome Quest, it also has some basic information on items liek Firearms and such but dosent go into the full revamping on magic and magic items and classes (ranger) that The iron Kingdoms Character guide does.
If however you want to jump i nthe deep end liek I pretty much did pick up a Iron Kingdoms Character guide and a Monsternomicon. See hoow you like it then get the rest.

Also pelase dont Forget this is a Campaign Settign for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 so you need the 3.5 D&D core books, which can still be found floating out there if one knows hwere to look.

Welcome to the Iron Kingdoms role Play Like youve got a PAIR.

The Recaps Of my Witchfire campaign.. also known as this ones been alogn time comming

SO hey its been a while since I've actually blogged. Really should try and keep this constant but then again I have just not found the time thanks to work, D&D and umm Champions Online. Yeah the games good no I'm not a life time member after Ayacon I couldn't afford to be. I got a discounted 6 months and the rest of the goodies.
But anyways were not here to talk Champions online .... yet, noo were here to talk about warmachine goodness really and that being my campaign.

So here we go what you've missed me talking about over the past 2 weeks.
Right so we left our adventurers deciding to skip the gatorman village and leave squint and his companions to there own fate (couple of points towards evil there).
So across the swamp land they went where they found dun dun dun Alexia's boat. inside they found the crew Alexia had Charmed into giving her a ride. And there big burly female Khadoran bodyguard who also was charmed and now tied up in the ship. Now what I mean by Khadoran bodyguard is welcome our new player Katie YAAAAY. She's playing our big Khadoran fighter with a big axe and monkey grip.

So with there new Khadoran ally they continue onwards into the Temple of Cyris. On arriving at the temple and upon hearing the Description of the temple of Cyris our Arcane Mekhanik starts to have an unhealthy fixation on the place which would make him the butt of the jokes for some time.
So charging in head long they encounter several groups of drones and Cyriss Clerics who lets face it are not pleased to see MORE intruders. They also find 2 men in cells. Thanks to quick spot checks they notice tatoos on their arms showing they belonged to the inqusition which involved them being shot to death in there cells by the party.
They picked up the flame thrower (although I never told em what it was) and then they got to the smelting room. They ran around with greandes in hand blowing clerics into the smelting pits and the crane was swinging around. And then kylies fighter scored the ultimate kill. How I put it after the crit roll she rolled away from the crane arm drew her rifle landed and proceeded to head shot the crane operater through the tinted window of the crane room. He bounced of the wall and proceeded to tumble out into the smelting vats.

So finaly after going up and down elevators they found the main room where alexia was. 1st up they took on the coven and did quite well als arcane mechanik managed to figure out that he had a flamethrower by traning it on the coven.
Once they were done all the party began to run towards alexia with the Gunmage preparing his precious quad iron and casting rune bullet on each seprate bullet (he had 4 turns to kill to get to alexia). SO before anyone else gets a turn including alexia the Gunmage who had highest Intiative essentialy CRITICALED Alexia with the Quad Iron. Essentialy he managed to deal enough damage to take take out alexia. SO she went flying into the pit and baboom the party has finnaly done what theyve been wanting to do since the Longest Night. KILL ALEXIA.
So the party pocket the Witchfire and get the FUCK out of there.

I decided to Skip Father Lucan or whatever he is the big spidery thing as that gamign session was comming to the end and the party wants out of the temple.
SO they got back to the boat found Squint and crew dead. So 1st thoughts for most of em was like ... awesome we got a boat. So The Arcane Mechanik gets the boat going on one paddle wheel.

So they get back to Corvis find out Vinters back the inqusitions runnign aorund the place and all swords are being confiscated. so they decide to park a li lfurther up rriver no where near corvis and try and find a back route in. They find a sewer entrance and go throug hthere and then find there way to a empty church where There ambushed by the Inquisitors and Helstrom. The party is liek Hell Helstrom has betrayed us and then he saves em and gets em to save Dumas which they do. Rember at this time I only had half the group with me and they stormed the place no problem left all the other prisoners to die bypassed the skorne torturer and then went and saved DUMAs and ran the hell Away. So I threw in a Skorne Warrior and a few guards for fun. Just so they knew hwat they were up against.
Also during this there Khardic fighter who had demanded she held onto the Witchfire had stayed on the boat and had found zombies romaing round it which she started to dispatch with no problem and almsot picked up the witchfire even though i waqs really hintign she didnt want to do that. To find out why go read the witchfire trilogy books the stats for that accursed sword are in there.

So i nthe end thats how it went Dumas was saved the sword was encased in stone and hidden in the Arcane mechaniks warehouse and now the party has free time. .... they also may have come into contact with a Skorne cyclops but eh you know.

What should inhabit Zu?

This is something I really want to bring up as Zu is mentioned i nNo Quater 25 just a little about a port what the new commers (the people of Immoren) are only allowed on and a Jungle where no newcommers have come back from alive. What Lives i nthere. We know monkeys do and a few other creatures have been mentioned. But what else? And the peoples culture we know so little what kind of architecture do they have? There is talk of Orgoth styles persistent in the culture. but what else?

Architecture

I would like to think where you go in Zu there is multiple Architectural designs as they talk about the port they have landed in seems to be a trade nexus for what seems several different nations ..maybe?

But 1st and foremost I would lke to think the general architecture is Aztec in nature. I think its just because of the Jungle. I would love my players to be exploring ancient temples in a thick jungle cannopy / clearing and to find a aztec esc temple would be awesome. However i would like to try something different say egyptian style pyramids in a jungle would defy normal conventions.

But I could also pull ideas from different regions of the world. The adobe style buildings intrest me as a viable option. So many options.

Creatures

Above I talked about the usual creatures monkeys beingkey ther. If there is no way to get a chimp for pirate to keep as pets the Pirates of the broken coats book would not be the same.

Ok so what can we expect from a non game rule perspective to find in that jungle. I would say the usual creatures you would find in any REAL jungle. Big cats, Exotic birds, Hell I might even make a few up for fun. Maybe some jungle elephants (they exist). Skys the limit. Besides for all we know there could be a savanah behind that Jungle or even a desset. I would feel more than at liberty to colonise Zu with many a crature you would find i nthe real world. And then we enter some adventurers with guns and we got big game hunting.

Now fro ma D&D perspective what creatures do I want to add into Zu. Although at the time of writing this not having all of the 3.5 Monster mnauals on me barring number I would like ot add 1st and foremost DINOSAURS.

Why DInosaurs .. WHY NOT it just seems righ i na fantasy world where we have big guns and jacks to pit them agaisn prehistoric beasties. YES YES YES!!!! ... excuse me a moment

But yeah appart from that I cant think of much else I would want to add to Zu not from monster manual 1 anyway. Well prehaps lizardmen and maybe orcs ... maybe.

SO those are my thoughts of Zu brought to you on my new laptop. Yes its here and its very sexy now back to snuggling the loveable missus

Enter The Cygnaran Military

So Friday was our latest session of my Iron Kingdoms Campaign which this week was "filler" (also reffered to as a side quest). I did start out writting this almighty side qwuest as I decided not to use the one what comes with the WitchFire Trilogy as I thought my group could do with somethign a little more intresting. But digreessing I had started to write up the nights quest but unfortunatly things got in the way like work. And wehn I sat down to finnish it I got interupted by mr selly comming over however it did mean I got a new player yays. Hes playing a Nyss rouge whos armed to the TEETH. Its all pretty cool.


So I decided to Wing the rest. Herse how it went down.



The Arcane Mechanik doing some work for the union overhears 3 men talking to a sailor from his point of view he could see they were Cygnaran Military, he approachesthem gets there story.


The Cygnarans are looking for a group of smugglers who have stollen a vast quantity of cortexes and jack parts (including military grade parts and cortexes). The cygnarans almost had them the other day but thenwell there was the whole undead army attacking Corvis and the group of SMugglers slipped out of there grasp. Now they need help tracking these smuglers down.



So our mechanik goes to find his adventuring party who had been held up in a tavern since the events of the longest night. He walks in to find our gun toting pirate swigging down as much rum as possible and our one armed "dirty harry" gun mage boozin and flitin with a nyss.

He explains the job shows em a picture of there target. The Nyss had seen him in the undercity however she was too sloshed at the time to give an answer and passed out.



The next morning the fun ensues the gun mage and nyss wake up i nthe same bed arcane mechanik comes up to find our gun mage and nyss in a wtf/what in mororws name is going on. So the mechanik asks the nyss if she has seen the man there looking for she had but wanted half the reward which didnt go down well with the group one thing led to the nyss pointing a dagger at the mechanik and the gun mage pointing a gun at the nyss' head which lead to the nyss revealing the Grenades under her great coat attached to string so if they do anythign she releases all the grenades everybody go boom. so the mechanik grudgingly agrees (mainly because he dosent want to be a smear on whats left of the tavern walls).



So they head into Corvis' seedy underbelly where on there way to the bar the nyss last saw the suspect they were ambushed by a gang who wanted all the Crowns (gold) and any other belongings. Unfortunatly the group got there arses handed to them and the party stood ther victorious wit hour pirate now in possesion of a Radcliff Firestorm Pistol from the gang leader.



When they get to the bar they ask around specificaly at the bartender and after being pretty much robbed blind of a fair few crowns get the information on where there target and his smugling crew were hiding out.

They go and check the place out they find 2 guards at the door. The rouge finds a back route but its got alot of rubble around it but she thinks he can get by without making any sound.



So they make a plan Nyss will sneak orund the back and if needs be ambush the enemy if things go badly. The rest of the party were to bluff there way in under the guise of having information on the men tracking them down. it worked (my rolls suck balls).



Wo the Nyss gets in noproblem after sneaking in and unlocking the door. the nyss finds herselves in a dinning hall where two people are talking about getting out of the city one of them has a Khardic accent.



The others entyer through the front and meet the leader of the gang known as boris.

He offers them many crowns for them to take care of the cygnarans and all the jack parts they had aquired except for the cortex'. After the group leaves the Nyss over hears a conversaion between the Khard woman and boris about how they intend to kill the party has done the job.

So the Nyss gets out and relays the information to the party who decide they best ally with the Cygnarans. SO after meetign trhem at there place they com to agreement the reward plus they hget to keep anythign they find so long as its not property of the Cygnaran Military or the Cortexes.

So the group works together to flush out the smugglers. This was goign to be a intrestign fight as I was hoping they would walk in the front which they did and they would be met by one of the smuglers go for a item under a tarp what happened to b a cygnaran chain gun. Unfortunatly The party didnt get much in the way of a challegne as the Nyss primed a flash grenade and tossed it in stunning the smuglers whic where then picked off quickly.
By the end of the battle The arcane mechanik was hauling off a nomad and a mule minus the cortexes and a few parts like arms and heads.
The gun mage came away with a quad iron and the pirate came away with a rifle.

All in all they were happy rewards better than money I belive. Unfortunatly the Khardic woman had vanished along with a cortex.

After stashing the jacks at a steamo storage unit a cleric approache the party and informs them that Father Dumas has summoned them. And thats where we left it ready for the next part of the Witchfire.

Right this post has taken me a flipping weke to write between sleeping and working so now I am gonna sleep as you know were RPing tommorow also I need to finnish Writing the Cygnaran soldiers stats as I think they will make great alleisl ateri n the game.

Awesomness redfined in many ways

Whoop whoop awesometimes today and yesterday. So lets start with today.

TODAY!!!

Me and Kylie went to see Luna in Norwich for a fun day of conversing, laughter and shopping.

We found some awesome stuff like my Batman beyond figure of terry maguiness, more gunpla goodness, comics (yaaaaaaaaay). What made me especily happy was the promo freebie. I now have a black lantern ring ... IM A CRAZY ZOMBIE WHOOOOOOOO!!!

Yus well much fun was had by all think ill have to go back to norwich again soon.

Ok so Yesterday between a minor incident in the kitchen I worked on a few minis over Kylies. one being the Old witch of Khadors Scrap Jack.

I really wanted to make the jack look like it was a hunk of scrap so instead of khadoran reds I used Tin Blitz as a base and then dryburushed (oh noes i dry brushed i sinned) brazzen brass over the jackand whala scrap jack ala scrap.

I also managed to paint kylies pirate before the game started except for the hair. I say it was probaly the most enjoyable model to paint just because I got to play with colours and mixing browns to do the leathers. I stil lhate trying to paint eyes.

So the other night we got around to finnshing the witchfire Part 1 - the Longest Night.

Warning the following section contains spoilers.

So we ran through the last part where alexias undead minions attack Corvis and well do quite a good job of causing terror. You know they were meant to. Terror and Confusion. So after shooting hacking and wrenching there way therough the undead to the church (as al the mechanik finnaly decided the undead So did not come across the city gates but probaly through the chirch catacombs). So they got there unfortunatly Kai had a family emergency and had to bail so his sorceress was koed by some falling rubble from a stray cannonball.

They got to the church to find it not streamign with undead and Father dumas out in full battle dress.

So we jumped straight into defendign the bridge. I only lobbed them 2 of the suggested 4 waves only because being a party of now 3 meant they were outnumered. I did send in Father dumas to aid the party esspecialy after the arcae mechanik was taken out of action with a unfortunate critical.

The waves took a bit of effort because of the smaller team (they were outnumbered 2 - 1 at level 2) the 2 fights served there purpose though. By the end the entire party including the fighter were wounded (albeit not that much in the fighters case) and tired from there ordeal as they retreated back Father dumas had to tend to the mechanik. Finnaly the undead came over in the huge wave and the party were like BUGGER this in whuch Alexia came in took her mothers body and the witch fire. enter the mysterious wizard the tug of war for the sword began and the PCs decided to give it to the Wizard. Non of the party trust Alexia at all which is great. I mean seriously awesome cause hell i wouldnt. Id still hit it.

SO we ended the game with Alexia flying off with the witch fire her entire army fell into old bones and a exhaughsted party was left to watch the city skyline burn.

So next session will be time for them to do what they need to do before the next part. So a bit of free form RPing and also I think I may run the inbetween quest. anyway its 3am i need to bloody sleep.

just a little update today

you know i havebeen painting my minis of late and i hought Id show everyone how far I have gotten.

BEHOLD from left to right - Vahn oberon (iron kingdoms - witch fire trilogy), Alexia Ciannor (witch fire trilogy - iron kingdoms), Miyamato Musashi (Infinity) and the big guy at the back is my Sprigana khadoran heavy warjack.

My sprigan im very proud off just because its not all red!!! I went and added another colour that wasnt a metal AWESOMENESS!!!

Ohberon isnt very red for my liking. Ill probaly go over Ohberon next with a coat of blood red snd p3 red ink mainly to pick out the folds in the robes.
alexias jacket i am pleased with. Its a mi of scorched brown (games workshop) and blood tracker brown (p3) iron wht ive then washed over with ogryn flesh (games workshop). Ohberon and alexia are from the iron kingdoms minatures range and featurei the witch fire trilogy. I have picked up all the Witch Fire Trilogy miatures and so far have completed only father dumas (whos missing an arm)
helstrom will be on the workbench later on after ive finished my current 3 miniatures. He will be joining Scarlet Kylies pirate minature from our dnd games.

I think ill paint alexia quite pale as she seems the pale kind.

Miyamato even though you cant see it properly hes standing on one of the street scenic bases from black cat bases. There awesome. and to be honest I dont think i did not even i have still need to put a base on him its got a big enough base as it is. Hes from the infinity game range and I still have to build his entire team and there support mech fuuuuun.
Right back to fixing my pc and going to sleep cause work tommorow /sigh


EEEEEEH LAST THING I WON A BID FOR A IK CHARACTER GUIDE YAAAAAAY