Deepest Sea Players' Guide

Well, after a couple months of lunchtime and some side tracking, I have at last finished the players' guide to the Deepest Sea (Located here).  This is intended for players in my Deepest Sea game, which I hope to be able to run over the holidays.  The guide has a character creation sheet, and a character sheet, as well as equipment and spell lists, a progression chart, and some "fluff" on the nations, a bestiary, and assorted other bits of information for 18 pages in total. This was created using Microsoft Publisher, and then converted to PDF.  The "art" is just placeholder art until I can draw and track down a few more fitting pieces. 

I am standing on the shoulders of giants to make this guide, with information from a number of sources, prices inspired by Rob's draft Majestic Wilderlands price list, silhouettes from Telecanter, prestige classes from FrDave, and some layout ideas from Roger's single sheet project. Many thanks to those who knowingly and unknowingly helped so far.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.  Now a short break, and then on to the DM's guide and the actual adventure.

Delenda est Carthago

I finally finished reading Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles.  This book, from its title, would appear to be an overview of Carthage's development and civilization; however, the book spends far more space talking about Heracles/Hercules/Melquart and how they became increasingly conflated as time went on through cultural syncretism.  Even the actions of Hannibal are presented as attempts to use the myths of Heracles as propaganda, and less of military/logistical actions.

This book was far less gripping than Empires of the Sea, the last history book I read, being much drier, due in part I suspect to the comparative lack of information.  Where as Roger Crowley had personal diaries and letters to draw from, Mr. Miles had only second hand histories and archaeological data from which to build his story.  Regardless of that though, the style of these two books could not be more different, with Mr. Crowley putting the reader in the action, and Mr. Miles takes scholarly distance to a new height.  The book spends far more time discussing sources and methods than in explaining general history, or geographical relationships, which I think is less useful way to write in a general history of this type. It does have an extensive bibliography and end notes, which do help to explain some of the assertions made.  In conclusion, it is hard to recommend this book to those who want a mere overview of Carthage, as it serves more as an examination of syncretism in Greek/Punic culture, and its impact on the ancient world.

The Punic wars though, remained interesting even with the dry style, and now I am more interested than previously in gaming in that period (as well as reading a military history).  The early Republican Romans fought an extensive set of wars all over the Mediterranean, and Hannibal is their iconic enemy.  I think that Warmaster is clearly the way to go with, since it allows for large armies, although Hail Caeser! and Warhammer Ancients could both do a good job with the period.  10mm is far cheaper than 28mm though, particularly as there are no Early Republican or Carthaginian plastics currently in production. 

Excellently, a "Carthaginian" army is mostly made up of generic forces, either supplied by Barcan Spain, various allied Celtic tribes, or as mercenaries.  The only really unique forces would be citizens from the Punic cities, Numidian horse, and elephants.  The generic nature of the army allows for the component pieces to be used in other areas, and in other wars.  With a few additions, it could be a Celtic invasion, post Alexander Macedonian kingdom, or Greek Successor army, all fighting against a common Roman army.  Somthing to think about when I need a new project. (2030?)

Warhammer Historical Sale

Warhammer Historical is having a half price sale on their books.  Unfortunately, they seem to be out of Warmaster Medieval, which is the book I am mainly interested in acquiring.  Still, this sale could be helpful to some, particularly those who are interested in Kampfgruppe Normandy, or Waterloo, which are otherwise very pricey. 

Although, Trafalgar for £13 shipped does seem like a pretty tempting deal... and I do like ships...

Earthscraper

Ever wondered where your mega-dungeons came from in your post apocalyptic setting?

Behold the Earthscraper, a giant inverted skyscraper.  This one is intended to replace the Plaza Major in Mexico City.

Just add a century of decay to this, and you have a dangerous dungeon with all sorts of treasures.  (it even has a museum at the bottom, which ought to have treasures worth seeking).

Also, a welcome to Galpy, a new follower.  Hope you see more of whatever it is you like about this blog. 

Defiance Games Marine

Defiance Games, which was born from the fallout of the Wargames Factory breakup, posted a preview of their first hard plastic scifi figures.

Looks pretty good so far, and I am certainly interested in these. Those arms looks as if they would take other guns pretty easily too, so this guy could get a lasgun, or a pulse rifle without much work.  Obviously we still need to see these compared to other figures, and some of the detail of the helmet looks strange, but I am much more excited than I was previously about these.

Dreadfleet

The long rumored "special September release" from GW has been reveled... and it is a Warhammer World Pirate game.  Two years ago, they rereleased Space Hulk, and I failed to get it, so I was pretty interested in this year's release.

Araby Djinn powered ship

Skaven "ship"

Fighting it out on the battlemat with some skull islands

Here is what Games Workshop has to say about it:
Dreadfleet is a boxed game for two (or more) players that includes everything you need to make war on the turbulent seas of the Warhammer world. At your command are two fleets of ships - the Dreadfleet led by the Vampire Count Noctilus, aboard his gargantuan sea-hulk the Bloody Reaver; and the Grand Alliance commanded by the Pirate Captain Jaego Roth, who recently stole the Heldenhammer - the pride of the Imperial Fleet, and one of the largest galleons to ever sail the high seas.

As your ships engage in furious battle, it's down to you, the fleet captain, to make important split-second decisions. Do you bring all guns to bear on the closest enemy warship, or do you sail into position for a furious broadside? What happens when the warship catches fire, or worse, the powder kegs ignite? Exactly how much punishment can your warship take before it sinks without a trace? Are those Undead seagulls or flying piranha fish? And, when all else fails, do you have the courage to ram your foe, board their ship, and engage them in a duel to the death?

This boxed game contains:

98-page Rulebook
Seascape Gaming Mat
10 Warships
10 Scenic Bases
7 Cog Auxiliaries
1 Dragon Auxiliary
1 Dirigible Auxiliary
7 Islands
5 Shipwreck Pieces
3 Sea Monsters
5 Treasure Tokens
12 Dice
1 Wind Gauge
2 Ship's Wheels
1 Navigation Rod
10 Warship Cards
55 Damage Cards
40 Fate Cards
12 Auxiliary Cards
10 Wound Cards
11 Miscellaneous Cards

For $115 in the US, it unfortunately does not rise to the level of product I expect for that price.  At $50 I would be very interested, but at double that price... not as much.  I am also disappointed that it is a "Grand Alliance" styled game, where each race only has a single ship, which means it is certain that there is a race you are not interested in.

Pity.  Maybe next year will be the year that they rerelease Warhammer Quest.

Character Sheet

Building from my one page character generation, I have been working on a character sheet.  The concept is to have everything that a player needs on one sheet, and further, all the "core" data needed to play in a single quadrant of the page.

I still need to work on the "fluff" quadrant, which is pretty basic right now (and fairly unattractive) .

Other design choices:
Silver pennies are the main coinage used in the Deepest Sea, so instead of a box to track GP, we have S/d/cp
Retainers are placed on the character sheet
Encumbrances are handled by lines in the item list, so that a character loses one move (5 feet) for every two lines filled.  Heavier items take up more lines.
Spells, skills, and such like are in KSAs

Anyway, here is what it currently looks like:

Let me know what you think.  Any suggested refinements?  Improvements?  Something I forgot?  Would it be useful for new players?

Also, welcome to new follower Lum. Hope you see some stuff you like here!

The Passage

I finished reading The Passage yesterday.  A newer book by Justin Cronin, it is an account of what happens when a "vampire" virus is found and released by the US government in a near future setting (2016?).  The first part of the book is concerned with collecting subjects for the testing, and then as things inevitably fall apart, what happens to those who survive, and their decedents, leading up, as all modern books do, to the inevitable sequels.  Over all it was a fairly interesting book, and one that fans of the end of the world genre may enjoy.

I do not want to give away too much, but it does have some great ideas for Post Apocalyptic gaming, and some of those could be  adopted for more sci-fi type games too, just replacing the virals (as the vampires come to be known) with very strong aliens, or genetically modified soldiers.  The post fall fortifications in particular are very interesting, and could be easily extended to, say, zombie gaming.

Perry Miniatures

Perry Miniatures, the company founded and run by the Perry Brothers, has a modern new website. 

The most exciting aspects of this are that the company appears to be VAT listed, which means those of us located outside the EU save 18%, and it has more pictures of miniatures, some of which have been for sale for some time without any official pictures, as well as pictures of the 3ups for future plastic work. 

Most exciting is this splendid example of the future Men At Arms sprue for their Renaissance range, which will have Flemish/English/Italian and German armor styles, as well as separate horse armor and a ton of weaponry.  Certainly one to look out for in the future, and they should make perfect WHFB DoW knights.

New website, 18% discount... sounds like a good time to make an order right?  And I will be getting that per diem check soon...

Foamular-tastic!

A chance glance at the Lead Adventure Forum subforum Workbench, led to the discovery that I can in fact buy extruded polystyrene in California, and better, locally!

Owens Corning Foamular sheet insulation, available in varying thickness, can be had at several local Home Depots, just not the one right by me.  As you are probably aware, this stuff is great for terrain, model building, and terrain building, as it is fairly strong, easily worked, and takes textures well.

Unfortunately the 2" thickness is a bit pricey, at $25 a sheet, but on the plus side I would only need two sheets to populate my currently strictly theoretical 6'x6' table.  1" is far more reasonable at $13.67 a sheet, and the thinner sheets are in a similar range.