INDEPENDENT TTRPG MODULE REVIEW: D&D 5E: Path of the Chieftain - Hellezoic Creations

 

Publisher: Hellezoic Creations

Date:  Already Out

Synopsis:

Have you ever wanted to play a barbarian that makes their allies stronger with just their aura? A barbarian that inspires your allies to be great and rallies them to your cause just when you thought you were down and out? Look no further than Path of the Chieftain!!

REVIEW:  

I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this fan addition to D&D 5th Edition from Hellezoic Creations, in exchange for an honest review. Whilst a lot of Barbarian Classes are there just purely for combat additions, this one is designed to make the best of all worlds and allows the barbarian to take centre stage as a champion that not only draws the agro from his friends but also bolsters them. Its well thought out, pretty balanced and all round gives the player the opportunity to play more of a Conan type of character who's skills draw the foes to them. It has options for protection, it has the ability to be adaptable and really means that you get the most from utilising your rage backing up the standard additions to really round the character out. All round a good bit of fun and I can see this option being popular. I look forward to seeing what other options Hellezoic comes up with.

INDEPENDENT MODULE CREATOR: Kickstarting: It All Started in a Tavern - Bea DnD

 

Hail Mighty Readers and Followers of the Maths Dice,

Our friends at Bea DnD have launched their kickstarter to fund their Module Book, It All Started in a Tavern, which is a book that is full of adventure Hooks, NPC's, Encounters, Loot and Magic Items for your games.

For more information and to help fund the project please go here.

Thundermouser

INDEPENDENT TTRPG CREATOR INTERVIEW: Kai Medina

The best thing about the TTRPG community, is that there's always an independent creator out there that makes something that not only players can get behind, but create it out of love with some wonderfully quirky options.  Kia Medina, an ecologist as well as photographer in New Jersey has dug deep and created quite a few independent titles that not only give you something different but also allows a whole heap of fun on his Itch.io site.  

Here we were lucky enough to be able to ask him some questions to learn all about what he brought to the table to amuse as well as fascinate....

Totally Pawsome:  As a creator of modules for TTRPG's, what inspired you to write the one you're most proud of?

Kai Medina:  The game I'm most proud of is "The Goblin Thought", where you play as a goblin collecting items for their hoard, but each item represents their memory of that day. As you collect and lose items, you tell a wonderful story, encounter change and loss, and practice skills relating to mindfulness, having a growth mindset, and being in a hive-mind.

I had the idea to write this a while back, but "A Thousand Year Old Vampire" gave me some more ideas for the mechanics that could let it run, and books like "The Last Human" by Zack Jordan helped me out when it came to flavor. As I put it all together, I ended up pouring into  it with my autistic experience, in a way that helped provide a strong platform for personal understanding and growth. I wanted people to see that the goblin's experience isn't lesser, it's just different. Being a goblin in this world can be tougher for some more than others, but it’s something certainly worth getting to know. As an educator, I tried to build in an equal amount of adventure/fantasy/intrigue as well as real life topics of stress management, neuro-diversity, and the idea of a day where everything went right, it can still feel sad sometimes, and that’s ok.

TP:  What would you say is the best selling point of your TTRPG's?

KM:  My tabletop games all revolve around understanding. They’re meant to both be entertaining, but offer a new lense and perspective. ‘The Last Step’ asks the player to understand other alien civilizations, while combining with real topics of having multiple identities. ‘To Care is to Cairn’ has you worldbuild a town out of reflections of ordinary objects that shape and are shaped by history, while growing on the idea that items and symbols of the past can have real-world power in the present. ‘BeHoRo’ has you tower-defending your dwarven base from crazy things like pitch-rain and meteorite monsters, but also says that we can’t always act perfectly when we’re out here trying to survive.

TP:  Why the TTRPG space?

KM:  A good monument lets you approach it, and engage with it. You get to see the reliefs on it (carvings / sculpted pieces bonded to it) and learn about the history, stand at a point and look out from the perspective of historical figures, and feel something. It’s a conversation. Games provide a means of conversation; facilitation, where we can escape and have fun in a fantasy world, while also encountering interesting topics we don’t always seek out in real life. It lets me convey what I have to say, and the player gets to hold and explore it without accepting it as fact or fiction. As they play they slowly bringing their own thoughts into physical being, like holding a piece of clay. It’s not forceful and lets them mold it, but has bounds that keep it from falling apart or wandering, giving specifics to engage with. Games allow for a kind of connection with others, even when they’re not fully with you. I’ve been playing dungeons and dragons for the past eight years, and managed to find community everywhere I’ve been - from Boston to Quito, I could find my group of friends, which can be  difficult otherwise.

TP:  What is your favourite product that you produce and why?

KM:  Definitely ‘The Goblin Thought’. It’s the least bulky (The Last Step is fun but isn’t wholly my own and takes quite a bit of reading), most entertaining (To Care is to Cairn is really great to play, if you fit that little boring niche that I reside in), and puts in the most of my personal life. Playtesting this game worked well with so many different people, and we created such interesting worlds within five turns. It takes a moment to get into, but once you get past the first turn, it’s smooth sailing.

TP:  What is your current work in progress and what can you tell us about it?

KM:  I’m toying with a goblin expansion, where a part of your hoard acts as a raft on the ocean. With lifelines (physically and mentally) holding you to it, you can choose to peacefully fish, or dive deep into yourself and the depths where lovecraftian beasts roam. The point of the game will be to add more direct adventure, as well as scaling up the threats for those ready for it. Plus I love throwing in some good fish flavor - I got my B.A. in ecology after all.

TP:  Who do you think would love to play your TTRPG's and why?

KM:  I think anyone can get into The Goblin Thought. When I resigned from a job, doing a couple rounds of it quickly each morning helped me cope. When I was playing with friends we had a goofy, battle filled time as we messed about and caused hissing shenanigans. The core of the game is to meet people where they are. When it comes to my other games, if the premise calls to you, it’ll be good. If not, fair enough.

TP:  Where do you see your TTRPG writing career taking you in 5 years?

KM:  I still see myself working on it as a hobby, but I’m hopeful to get something in a game store one day. Heck one of these is already up online on Barnes and Noble. That’s crazy.

TP:  If you were given the time and opportunity to develop something unique, what would it be and why?

KM:  More of what I do. I am thankful to have the time and opportunity now, so I use what I can and wait for more inspiration to strike.

TP:  Who do you admire in the Independent TTRPG writing space and why?

KM:   I love a shared table. Weird fantastic art pieces like “A Collection of Improving Exercises” by Tim Hutchings that really push the genre past the normal monopoly borders. Places that revitalize history like assets ‘Rabbits & Demons’ traced by Exeunt Press (not to mention their great Exclusion Zone two-pager). Stories that are continually advancing classroom STEAM topics and cultural discussion in places such as “Kampala Yénkya”, and others that provide players with a physical product to look at, take home, and admire like in BlackwellWriter’s ‘DELVE’. Finally the fact that a community where the same $5 get’s passed around managed to raise over $250k for Trans Rights in Florida from a $5 bundle. That’s something incredible.

TP:  What got you into TTRPG's in the first place?

KM:  I listened to ‘The Adventure Zone’. Nobody around me wanted to try D&D but my friend Connor. So the two of us had fun with it. Then, over time, we brought more and more onboard. Real heart is found when sharing a meal with others, and so having some dragons to kill in the meanwhile adds some spice. Always make sure to bring snacks for the table and especially for the host.

MINIATURE PAINTING: Zombies - Warhammer

OK, so I've been promising this for quite a long time so I finally felt brave enough, having gotten some models I was in love with, alongside getting as paint set to take pictures as I went along, but forgot in various stages, so I'll explain what I did.  (Doh!  Hence why I need to invest in a good camera to film it.)

So having bought the miniatures I firstly had to think about what sort of zombies did I want.  Did I want zombies that had just been dug up having been rotting for a while or did I want super fresh just palid ones?

Now as some people like to do, as a TTRPG'er I asked myself some questions:  

What is the story for my zombies?  

Where did they come from?

Who is controlling them?

What is the nature of the zombie?

Right, so this might seem a bit exaggerated but for me, what was important was this would influence my choice of colours.  So the story I came up with was:

Having crossed a good part of the world and having been challenged, the necromancer went to the nearest cemetery of a large town, the dead of the poor were buried close to the surface, the dead of the rich in either a mausaleum or protective cages to stop them being robbed.  The poor being easier to get to were raised and dug themselves up, so that meant being poor they didn't have fancy clothes, no purples or other colours that required expensive dyes so that limited it to a fair selection of browns, some tans and of course yellows (as we all know that a lot of clothing was washed in urine.)  So that was my clothing palette.  

Right, so how long had they been there, well only being a small town they could only have been there a matter of a couple of years/months and so they weren't going to look their best and with the skull and other bones poking through alongside wood that had been growing through their peaceful rest, they were going to be extremely unnaturally white with the dirt of muck covering them.

So that gave us this palette of colours to utilise.

Each of these paints I know has good coverage after a good shaking so that really helped as to be honest I've not really got to grips with a wet palette choosing to use the old tried and tested bathroom tile in the way I used all those years ago.  (You can pick one up from your local DIY store as a sample tile for about £1, if you have none in your home currently or a cheap side plate from your local supermarket.)  (I am referring to Army Painter colours for the rest of this article as they're the only paints I have currently.)

Now that has been sorted I had to decide how to undercoat, whilst some like to spray paint black and zenithal highlight with white, I decided just to go with white to start with as they were going to end up pretty dark and sometimes the darkness does hide some details that you might miss.

My first job was to cover the skin with as really pallid colour, so for that I used Mummy Robes to begin with, once that was done, I coloured the clothes and wood with a desert yellow and then allowed to dry.  Once this was done, I used the elven flesh to highlight and finished with a flesh wash over the skin.  After that I dry brushed with the necrotic flesh and left as it was.  The clothes were dry brushed with Elven Flesh and then an incredibly light touch of the demonic yellow (which was also used for the female zombies hair.  The wood was given a highlight of Oak brown (which sadly wasn't as thick as I really wanted, dry brushed with a little mummy robes.  With the male zombies hair being coloured necromancer grey.

Then finally after painting the female zombies shovel head with a matt black, dry brushed with a shining silver with some dots of Lava Orange for rust.  They were then coated in Vallejo's Black Wash.  

Hopefully in future we'll have additional paints but until I need to purchase more, my painting will be based using Army Painter unless otherwise stated.  Thank you for visiting.

Thunder Mouser.

TTRPG NEWS: Warhammer: The Old World to not include Starter Box Set - Games Workshop

 

OK, today at Warhammer Fest, Warhammer Old World was announced and whilst it has a whole host of promises the main thing that I noticed was that there are no plans to release rules included starter armies set for this title, (whilst another one announced over the weekend, Warhammer 40K:  Leviathan does.)

This, for me, is a mega problem for a number of reasons but the key one is that a rules related release starter army box sets always includes a number of miniatures that are extremely good value and allows people to start collecting and playing until they can get additional units and up their army points count.  Without these, it does feel like they're trying to cut out a number of younger hobbiers or those wanting to return especially when they announced that the game wasn't for new players only to contradict themselves later by stating that there would be ways for new players to join.  

I feel its imperative to include a starter set as it gives all hobbiers an even ground to start with as they can be learning the rules alongside tactics as they await the release date for the army that they want to collect.  This also generates a set of problems as for example with them working on the Bretonnians and Tomb Lord books first, they are going to be the armies with the bigger selection of troops to begin with that means it could easily counteract other armies troops.  For example a Bretonnian/Tomb Lord Army is going to quickly out point all other factions and if your friend wanted to wait to get say a Chaos Faction or an Orruk/Gitz army, they could have a 6-18 month delay until they can get the troops/characters to balance out the tabletop battle whilst also making rash decisions on troops only to discover that for their tactics that the troops they bought aren't suited.  

Having a starter set with the rules allows new players the chance to play armies they wouldn't have considered and having tried them, may spark a love for that forces tactics or figures that they may have otherwise ignored.  

Now OK this might seem like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill as the rules will the available for free and of course they can easily be updated when problems are identified but it does feel strange to get a boxed set for one title and not another.  OK, so yes, they have announced legacy figures to be included (which would have to be characters like the Green Knight and the Fey Enchantress for the Bretonnian army, but another major problem with setting it 500 years before which I think sets us up in the beginning of the Second Millenium with the cult of Sigmar promising to eradicate Witchcraft and Sorcery (which will make magic tricky) and Finubar of the High Elves only having arrived at a Bretonnian port which will restrict the high elf option.

 

All round whilst a release date hasn't yet been announced for this title I really do hope that they reconsider a starter box set or at least ask the fans their opinions.  Here's hoping.

This is based on me remembering;

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Starter Box set that included the rules, High Elves and Goblins (4th Edition)

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Starter Box set that included the rules, Lizardmen and Bretonnians (5th Edition)

Warhammer Fantasy Regiments (that included Dark Elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, wood elves, Skaven)

TTRPG INDEPENDENT ARTIST CREATOR: Edward Yorke

Having seen an ad for the cover art of forthcoming game Rune (a fab collaboration between Gila RPG's, NS Miniatures and artist Edward Yorke), I was more than intrigued and dug into finding out about the artist.  I loved his dark themes and so when I saw that he was a Freelance Artist doing contract work as well as commissions for D&D I had to contact him to discover more.

Here he answers our first set of interview questions and reveals a few things about himself...

Totally Pawsome:  As an artist, what comes first for you, the story or a snapshot and why?

Ed Yorke:  Personally to me the image always comes first, as they say an image says 1000 words so crafting the right image is first and foremost. The story is right up there second, but I can enjoy art that tells a story all by itself without having any context. 

TP:  What would you say sells your art to people?

EY:  My TTRPG art is fairly dark, I tend to approach things with a bit of grit and grime. In my mind adventuring is mucky business and I like my artwork to reflect that, I think people respond to that mood well.

Why the TTRPG space?

EY:  I don’t actually play TTRPG’s myself, the connection was purely down to putting my art out there and getting a good response from the folks in that community. I like working on projects that include world building, narrative, and overarching themes, which is the bread and butter of TTRPGs so it’s a natural fit. Even though I’m not a player myself, I relate to the feeling of losing yourself in imagined worlds, I feel that is enough to make art without understanding what all the stats and rolls mean.

What is your favourite piece that you've created and why?

EY:  Thats a hard one to answer, I think personally my favourite piece was Rain. I ran a contest on Twitter for some art, and the winner let me do whatever I wanted. I had just finished a bunch of highly prescriptive briefs so was feeling ready to do my own thing, and I let loose on Rain. I enjoy paintings that look like paintings, but since I work 99% digitally it’s an interesting process to get the look of an Oil Painting, which I really had fun recreating here.

TP:  Coming up with a piece is often an idea that gets written into a journal to come back on. How often do you find yourself working on one piece and another comes to mind and can you give an example?

EY:  That’s a problem I don’t really have at the moment, I’m working on a few TTRPG’s and a video game, in between commissions. I don’t really have much time for personal work. However when I do I tend to drop everything to get it done, I don’t have a journal of ideas but maybe I should keep one…

TP:  What do you think is most inspiring about your pieces and why?

EY:  I don’t think I’d call my work inspiring, maybe interesting due to the textures and colours I use.

TP:  Where do you see your artwork taking you in 5 years?

EY:  I hope to be working on my own ideas in the future. Developing my own work and partnering with writers and designers to help flesh the ideas into something for other people to enjoy. I’ve got some world building brewing in a document that is waiting for me to really dive into making art for. I’m also developing video games, I hope that I can create some niche for myself there and make some interesting new ideas in that space.

TP:  If you were given the time and opportunity to create anything you wanted what would it be and why?

EY:  I’d get weird, I love the idea of exploring different media such as VR and animation. An infinite budget and I’d just hire a bunch of my friends to drop everything and create strange and new experiences for people, paintings coming to life in Virtual Reality with music and sensory accoutrements to elevate the experience. I would eventually return to my comfort zone of painting but I want to really explore visual communication and all the esoteric forms it can take, before bringing it back to painting.

TP:  Who do you admire in the fantasy art community and why?

EY:  So many people, I find new artists, writers, designers and developers every day. To name just a few I really love the work of Ivan Kohetnov, Tooth Wu, Sergey Kolesov, Greg Rutkowski, Karla Ortiz, Dominik Mayer, Anato Finnstark, Betty Jiang, Edward Delandre. Those are all names I’d say are the giants I admire in the art form, I’m sure I’ve missed a million but they come to mind first today.

TP:  What got you into TTRPG's in the first place?

EY:  Since I don’t play TTRPG’s myself, it’s got to be the community. The folks in this space (generally) are very accepting, open minded, and excitable! I always enjoy talking to people about the art I’m going to be making with them, since it’s collaborative, they always get so excited and that is such a fun dynamic.

INDEPENDENT TTRPG MINIATURE CREATOR: Isaiah Tanenbaum - Eldritch Foundry

As a fan of miniatures, I'm always on the look out for something special and unique, after all, if I'm going to play a TTRPG I want my character to be not only unique but epically posed as well,  so finding a character like that used to be nigh impossible unless you modded a standard one yourself and it was pretty difficult to do so.

These days, however things have changed and companies like Eldritch Foundry, have brought out a UI where you can create a character from the ground up where heritage gives you variety of species to pick (and future plans to add more) and you can not only dress them according to your tastes but also pose them epically so that your character will be unique not only physically but facially too.

Here we have been lucky enough to talk to their marketing manager Isaiah Tanenbaum about them and where they hope to be going in the next few years...

Totally Pawsome:  How do you work out which themes to create pieces for?

Isaiah Tanenbaum:  It's a combination, really, of a few factors.

First, what do our users tell us they want? We can't do everything -- we're a small team -- but if they're all speaking with one voice that a certain kind of weapon or ancestry needs expanding, we want to be receptive to that. For instance, a LOT of folks have been asking for additional animal ancestries, so we plan to add more animal kin later this year.

Second, each December we look to the year ahead for major releases and events: movies, RPG supplements, holidays, even gaming conventions, and try to match those with thematic releases. For instance, we released a number of class-themed backpacks a few weeks ago, our riff on the "adventuring pack" that is a staple of many Level 1 builds, since we think a lot of folks will be inspired by the D&D movie to kick off new campaigns. There are a number of high-profile TTRPGs coming out in the next few months, and we're working with several of them to line up matching ancestries and equipment to match. And the upcoming triple-hit of a new Fast & Furious movie, The Mandalorian, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3 led us to our upcoming "Space and Speed" pack, which expands on our sci-fi and space offerings with a bit of flair.

Thirdly, our team has their our own priorities and desires! Our modelers are real artists, and we want to let them follow their passions where they lead. If they make something that inspires them, we figure it will inspire our users as well. We have an awesome set of dwarven-inspired armor that our modeler Yuda has been working on for a little while, and I can't wait to share that with folks.

Finally, there are times when nobody in particular is demanding something, but we have an instinct that it's needed in the space. That's how we ended up with our elemental pack, for instance. When these hit, they really hit, because it expands folks' idea of what's even possible with our system.

TP:  What would you say sells your miniatures to people?

IT:  When I came on, I would have said it's our ultra-high-resolution printing (30 microns!), our resin's amazing durability, or our level of design detail, all of which we offer at a much more attractive price point versus our competitors. And that's all true, but what I've come to learn is that ultimately people choose us because of how our minis make them FEEL. When you hold an Eldritch Foundry miniature, the care and detail we took to provide it is immediately evident, and the art style, custom body morphology for different ancestries, and fully-adjustable faces and posing says "this is an epic, mature character that looks like a custom head-to-toe sculpt by an artist, not the result of interchangeable, cookie-cutter parts being pushed against one another and stretched to fit." We believe, and hold ourselves to, the North Star that every miniature someone makes on our site is beautiful, and each design should feel like it's really your own and nobody else's, just like your character is. Otherwise, what's the point?

TP:  What is the turn around time from designing a concept to having it ready for printing?

IT:  It depends on the complexity. A new ancestry, lineage, or pose might take MONTHS, as our team tweaks and prints real-world prototypes and tests and iterates. In the case of our diverse human lineages and amputee options, we also build in time to hear back from consultants from the groups we're representing, on everything from design choices to messaging. On the other hand, a new item might be ready to go in as little as a few weeks. Even then, because of that different morphology, each "soft" item (which adjusts to the underlying figure's form; think clothing, hair, or a new pose) is actually several dozen releases: two each (male and female) for Humans, Elves, Undead, and similarly-proportioned bodies, another pair to cover Dwarves and Halflings, another pair to cover Goliaths, Ogres, and Half-Orcs, and so on. Swords, shields, bases, and other "hard" items (which don't change depending on who you put them on) are a little faster, but still need testing and iterating before we're ready to release them.

Bit of trivia related to the above: as far as our system is concerned, we actually have over half a million individual "things" to choose from. That's on the backend, though; what the user actually sees when creating a character is more like dozens of ancestries and starting poses, and hundreds of items.

TP:  What is your favourite piece that you've created and why?

IT:  The next one! I'm joking of course, but also not. I always want to be looking forward, and thinking about what people could create with our newest release (and they always surprise me, in the best ways).

If you had to ask me what I'm most proud of that's already out, I'd say that our dynamic chain weapons are real show-stoppers. Seeing peoples' faces light up when I demonstrate a flail or nun-chuck that actually swings around in real life is so fulfilling. I feel like a magician pulling off a trick. I also think the "flying books" base effect is just super cool.

TP:  Coming up with a piece is often an idea that gets written into a journal to come back to. How often do you find yourself working on one piece and another comes to mind and can you give an example?

IT:  I'm not a modeler myself, I'm just the guy asking the team "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do X"? And then they tell me why I'm an idiot and that can't happen, or what it would take to do it. Or, every now and then, they say "yeah sure, we can do that."

One thing that's been a big lift for us, much requested, has been creating poses with one or more feet off the base. We've wanted to do it for a while, but it took some significant work behind the scenes to make it possible -- everything from changing how we store bone data to creating soles for every. single. shoe and boot to testing the poses to see whether the figures would even print -- and only then could we even consider creating and releasing the poses. As I write this, we are nearly ready to release the first batch of these, which we're calling "epic poses", but it's been the better part of a year with us chipping away at it while also releasing other new features that upend our system a little bit less.

TP:  What do you think is most inspiring about your miniatures and why?

IT:  The care that we take. I'm constantly amazed by the work our team puts in making sure each release is not only epic and cool, but looks good (and holds up) in the real world. Yes, it means our pipeline is a little slower than it otherwise might be, but ultimately every single thing we put out is the result of hours, days, weeks, and months of intense care by real artists. I think you can feel that when you hold one of our miniatures in your hand.

TP:  Where do you see your business taking you in 5 years?

IT:  There are certainly a number of features we want to tick off: pre-colored miniatures, additional ancestries and lineages, better body diversity, more female clothing options, native VTT support, and so on. But in general, the most important thing about our five-year plan is increased market awareness. We don't need to be the biggest kid on the block -- there's actually a certain freedom to being the Pepsi instead of the Coke of the custom miniatures game -- but I would like more folks to know about our product and make a fully informed choice about who to go with. Hopefully, this interview helps! 🙂

TP:  If you were given the time and opportunity to create anything you wanted what would it be and why?

IT:  I mean, I have a toddler and another one on the way. I'm pretty excited about creating THOSE, but after that, if I had infinite time I'd say I'd just like to be able to get an in-person game going. I miss making stories with my friends! But, see above re: one, soon two kids under the age of three. Not exactly prime time to make a regular game night happen!

TP:  Who do you admire in the fantasy community and why?

IT:  I admire anyone and everyone who is putting original work out there into the world. I come from a theater background myself, and so I know full well that the act of making yourself vulnerable by creating is really hard, but also the most human and necessary thing any of us can do. I'm also in utter awe of people like Kobold Press (our partners in Tales of the Valiant) who saw an issue in the TTRPG community and are moving mountains to provide a product that will probably not bring them a whole lot of income, but is super needed.

TP:  What got you all into TTRPG's in the first place?

IT:  I think my first game was a GURPS campaign in sleepaway summer camp in between eighth and ninth grade. The idea that you could just make up a story that was also a game was so thrilling. We spent every free moment (and more than a few meals) smashing goblins and having a ball of a time. I've never looked back.