It's been awhile...

So, first off let me say, whoops! Life has gotten lifey and I've been busier than I first thought I'd be. Now, that all said, I have some exciting news:

1) I have spent some free time, what of it I have, painting the minis from the Castle Ravenloft board game. I am almost done, finally having gotten to the PCs themselves. Now, I'm actually a little nervous for this, with the monsters at least I can paint them one to three colors and they look fine, the PC minis require a bit more detail (and I don't have any fleshtone paint!) Once I finally finish with the PCs I'll post the some pictures of the whole bunch with some tips and tricks of my admittedly short painting "career."

2) I recently took a group of friends under my wing and corrupted them and taught them how to play D&D. These guys are addicted now and cannot get enough. Every couple of days I get a text asking if we can play or do an impromptu one shot or something. It's awesome! Now, mainly we've been running through Keep on the Shadowfell, despite some of its more glaring flaws, with some minor (and major) alterations. The game has gone swimmingly and has been a lot of fun on both sides of the screen.

The reason I bring up teaching some buddies how to play is that we've done a number of one shots that I have written up and I plan on posting them on here for frizzles with some author notes. Now, given the nature of the group (they're newbs) the adventures themselves are fairly (read: very) railroady. Despite the as-written rail road that is the plot, I do do a lot of impromptu on the fly type stuff based on how they react to certain things or try something crazy that I hadn't accounted for. Now, once I finally get these bad boys re-typed to be more clear in pdf format I'll upload them here, likely one every few days or so.

Here is a brief teaser/spoiler for the one shots I've written:

• a prison break
• a tongue-in-cheek Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque parody (don't ask...)
• a delve to a forest temple filled with ancient cultists (meant to be a one-shot set within the events of Keep on the Shadowfell)
• a classic armies of the land versus the sea the contains prisons and gladiatorial combat
• a delve into the Underdark
• a time travelin' trek into the Underdark (a sequel to the first delve)

If there is an interest in any of these, please do not hesitate to let me know either in the comments or via email! Regardless of reception I am planning on posting the above rail-road-tastic one shots and if I receive enough buzz I will post a very deadly Castle Ravenloft inspired work that I am currently writing in my spare time. 

3) I am currently writing two different settings. The first of which is the aforementioned Castle Ravenloft inspired setting which is probably going to lean on the side of somewhat grimdark, for better and for worse. As I stated, it's going to be deadly and I will likely be making use of a lot of homebrew stuff as well as the Fourthcore Armory and the Fourthcore Alphabet. (I will also review the Fourthcore Alphabet once I receive it in the mail!)

The second setting is more of my attempt at 4e world building. I have built worlds and concept in the past that I've gotten 75% of the way into before I just start drawing blanks. A big problem with this was years ago when I was very much on my Pathfinder kick. Ever since I delved back into 4e a couple of years ago, I have been inspired and this second setting is the fruits of that labor realized in a low magic church inquisition type setting. More on this in a subsequent post.

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Well, that's all for now. I know I've written a lot of checks in this post and I'm going to make a concerted effort to uphold my end of them. I'm going to try and be more active during the tail end of this year and throughout the year next year because Sorcerer Blob has lots to say about the wide world of gaming!

Things to come: product reviews for Brother Ptolmey and the Hidden Kingdom (finally!), Heroes of the Feywild, the Fourthcore Alphabet and Armory, and finally Altered Earth. In addition to this will be pictures, blog posts, my own adventures and reviews of published adventures like the Madness at Gardmore Abbey and the Saturday Night Delves over at Save Versus Death.

Until next post!

-blob