Farewell 2011

And what a year jam-packed with events it was. There was so much going on that even now, casting a glance over the reviews of the year on TV, I'm surprised that I've forgotten some things that were quite momentous at the time. On a personal note, whilst 2011 was not as kind to my family as I would have liked, I approach 2012 with a degree of optimism that I hope will be justified.

On the gaming front, the success of Team Adventure continues apace. Things may well develop further since for Christmas, Junior Grognard got the DMG and PHB and in 2012, I intend to set him some practical exercises in stocking dungeons using the excellent maps of the inimitable (and now returned from wherever it is he went) Dyson Logos. I've got 30 years of experience that I hope JG can utilise - he may well have a group of his own by this time next year.

The march (albeit slow) of An Adventure for Every Monster to Z for Zombie will continue and there may be some other series coming up, hook-oriented.

There may also be something Cthulhu-inspired in the pipeline, inspired by the fiction shorts from Dungeonmum earlier this year.

I'll keep reading and reviewing stuff that I think has relevance for the subject matter of the blog.

I'll probably be asleep by the time the new year comes in so may I take this opportunity to thank all of you who follow this blog, all those who regularly read it and anybody who's dropped in to see why so many of my most popular posts are about pigs. If you've found something useful for your games, then I feel my work is worthwhile.

Happy New Year!

The last of the Drow

Well, this marks the final figure in the Miniatures Monday series. It's the last photo I've got of figures that I feel are of sufficient interest for me to wax lyrical about either the casting, painting or things inspired by the subject of the figure itself.

Today, we have an all-action Drow with a wickedly sharp dagger and the famous hand-crossbow, scourge of the Underdark. From the look of it, this Drow is, like myself, left-handed. Andy's gone once again for the blue tint to the hair and has brought that blue in again elsewhere on the figure. The sickly purple of the gloves and the lime green of the trousers (or is it hosiery) and the skirt of the tunic remind us again that when you are brought up in darkness, colour is entirely subjective. The sleeves, what can be seen of them, would appear to be a shade that I'd call "Nightfall" if I were a Drow tailor.

One thing I do like about this figure is the face - the look of sneering contempt for Overworlders as they face the wrath of Lolth. Even wholly black, it hints at the evil behind it. In fact, it reminds me of this chap

Yes, Lucius Malfoy is a wannabe Drow.

As I mentioned above, this is the last Miniatures Monday and I've been pondering its replacement. I had thoughts of doing a mini-adventure, scenario or even just some ideas or hooks for each monster in the Monster Manual, one a week - it might be a slightly edited list as I can't think of that many exciting adventures for shriekers, but I'm working on it and we'll have to see what comes of it.

What's going on?

The times they are a-changing; things begin, things happen, things end. I'm not pulling the plug on the blog, never fear, but I am making a few changes that will affect what you read here.

Firstly, SNFC - I've decided to put it on a sabbatical for a while; I've been running low on ideas and I wanted to prevent it getting stale. It has been running for about six months now. It may return in another format, I'm not sure. Anyway, just wanted to say that up till now, it's been a lot of fun to do and I do appreciate those of you who commented on it and whose support gave me the confidence to keep it going. Hopefully, it may have spurred some of you into giving some lesser-known monsters some OSR love.

Secondly - I've decided not to blog unless I've got something worth blogging about. Depending on how full the ideas pot is, that may mean that quite some time goes by without a post. I'm working on something at the moment that may see the light of day next week.

And to completely contradict myself, I'm also planning something a little bit unusual. Lots of bloggers post their adventure logs and until a few weeks ago, I was doing the same with Junior Grognard's activities. He's gone a bit meh on gaming at present - may restart it, may not. Anyway, to get over the lack of players, I've decided to do the following:

Using the random dungeon tables in the DMG and a bunch of characters from the 1e Character generator on Dragonsfoot, I'm going to do a solo dungeon and write it up. I'll not know what's coming up until I make the rolls, and I'll report the rolls as they fall, honestly and without fudging. I think it'll be interesting to see how the dungeon develops - TPKs and dead ends notwithstanding. Comments on the posts may affect what the party does the next session. What is rolled up will stand and may generate hooks and ideas for further adventures.

I'm not allocating a particular day for it - when I have time (RL issues permitting) I'll do some rolling and writing.

Following a suggestion by Lawrence Blake on my recent post "Things to do in D&D when you're dead", I may also start to do a Hooks Alphabet. If anyone has any ideas on stuff they'd like to see hooks for, let me know and I'll see if I can jump-start the brain into action.

My module writing will continue in the background; a second session of playtesting the first one will (hopefully) happen soon thanks to Dungeonmum's gang - then it's getting it illustrated and converting it to pdf. If anyone knows a freeware reliable pdf converter, could they let me know?

Many thanks!

And now I'm off to attend to RL issues.