Phat Lewt in the Magic Realm

Last night I was playing Magic Realm via Realmspeak, and wandering around the lands with what I call my Power Trio.  No, we're not talking about Rush, but that would be awesome.  My Power Trio consists of the Berserker, The White Knight, and the Dwarf.  These three can take on any of the big monsters in the game without much risk, although the four dragons who showed up once made things a little interesting.  All three are good fighters against big heavily armored monsters, and the dwarf, though he is slow, is excellent at finding treasures in the caves.

We were killing monsters collecting lots of treasure, but at first most of it was best suited for the magic using characters in the game.  Then we found the Crypt of the Knight and managed to loot it without being cursed.  I got the Bane Sword and the Tremendous Warhorse for the White Knight, making him even more awesome.  We then moved on to loot the Hoard which scored the Gold Helmet and the Silver Breastplate for the Berserker.  The Dwarf got a rock, but then hey, he is the dwarf. :-)

With the White Knight's heavy armor, the Berserker's high toughness and the Dwarf's combat ability and cave knowledge, these three can rack up some serious treasure when the work together.

The Fascination of the Magic Realm

Ahh, Avalon Hill's Magic Realm.  There are times that I wonder why I have such a great fascination with a game that I can barely play.  Now when I say barely play, that may not be entirely accurate.  If given enough time, I can set the board up.  I get movement and have a pretty decent grasp on combat.  Magic is kind of a mystery to me, but that's probably more because I don't generally play magic using characters, and horses still confuse me.  But even with these issues, the game still has kept a hold on my mind after 35 years.

As I've said in previous posts, I get my original copy for Christmas in 1979 as a gift from my aunt Cathy.  She knew that I was into stories about wizards like The Hobbit and she either saw this in the toy store or bought it through her book club.  Yes, they sold Avalon Hill games in toy stores and through book clubs back in those days.

I can still remember opening that box on Christmas Eve at my Grandparent's house and marveling at what was inside.  Those hexagonal map tiles were just awesome.  The had forests and cave and mountains.  It looked incredible.  

And the characters!  There were 16 of them and the character cards were awesome.  I remember the Druid and the White Knight being my favorites.  I wanted to play these characters.

Then there was the rulebook.  The blue first edition rule book.  Now I was 10, reasonably bright, and reading well above my grade level, but that book was a mystery to me.  Still, as obtuse as the rulebook was with with wargame-like structure and confusingly organized instructions, there were gems to be found.  There was a pool that a giant octopus lived in.  There was a vault filled with treasure and a crypt of a knight.  There were natives who you could hire to help you or kill for their treasure.  In short, there was magic in this game.

For years I would pull the game out of my closet and make my best attempt at setting it up, but mostly I would just stare lovingly at the pieces knowing that there had to be an awesome game in there somewhere.  And of course I was right.  It wasn't until I was in college that I actually got to play a real game of Magic Realm, and it was everything that I could have hoped for and more.  The depth of the game is incredible and the variety is seemingly endless.  The second edition rulebook helped a lot too.

These days, I can play it via Realmspeak, which certainly saves on the setup and record keeping time.  It's not as fun as playing with live people, but it has the advantage of being available all the time.  I've looked for other games to love over the years, but none of them have ever come close.  Most recently I picked up the Mage Knight boardgame, as it sounded like it might be a spiritual successor to Magic Realm, and while it was cool, it just isn't Magic Realm.

Honestly, whenever I try to explain to people how great Magic Realm is, I tell them that they just have to play it to understand.  If anyone is interested, here are my two previous posts about Magic Realm.

The Real Forgotten Realm

and

A Busy Day in the Caves of the Magic Realm

And if you'd like to read some really excellent posts that give a good overview of how the game is played, check out this blog: http://cmagoun.blogspot.com/

Miniature Reclamation

Here is a little reclamation project that I worked on over the weekend.  I started painting a long time ago (30+ years) when I was in junior high, and back then I wasn't very good.  Not that I'm claiming to be very good now, I was just much worse back then.  When I got back into painting bout twelve years ago, I had a lot of things to relearn, and painting skin was one of those things, so I practiced.  I practiced a lot.  The results ranged from bad to so-so.  Many of my early washed were to dark, and some of my priming jobs were bad as well, and these factors lead to some fairly disappointing paint jobs, but I kept practicing and got a bit better, and these days, I'm OK with most of my paint jobs.  Those earlier disappointing paint jobs however are still out there. I've thought about stripping them down and starting again, but that seems a bit extreme, so I decided to try to save a few, by repainting the worst parts and keeping the not-so-bad parts.  Here is my first example.  

The original miniature as painted several years ago

The same miniature after repainting his skin and parts of his sword.

Just another angle of the reclaimed miniature

Overall, I think it's an improvement and now at least I have a miniature that I might use at the gaming table.  How does anyone else deal with disappointing paint jobs?  Do you start over, or do you try to fix what you've already done?  Just curious.

Miniatures Monday

A barbarian warrior attempts to loot the Temple of the Skulls.  Will he survive to win the treasure, or will he meet his doom?

Journeys in the park

Here are some photos that I took on a winter walk around the lake in North Park.

 Despite the recent warm weather the lake is still frozen, but not so frozen that I would try to walk on it. :-)

 The sky was amazingly clear and blue.  I actually had to dig out my sunglasses for the walk!

Looking from this angle, it looks much colder than it was.  In truth it was almost 60 degrees. 

It's been many years since I've seen the lake this frozen. 

I'm never quite sure that this building is, but I've always thought that it was cool.  It looks like where The Wizard of the Lake should live. :-) 

Here we can see the spillway leading out of North Park lake and the bridge.  There is a boat launching pond that you can reach by kayaking under the bridge.

Endless Adventures

So about ten years ago, I was doing a lot of Perl programming and came up with the idea to write a random adventure seed creator.  While going through some of my old gaming papers, I came across a few examples of the program's output and decided to transcribe them here.  I wish that I still had the source code for this.  :-)

From my random adventure creator:

You have been hired by an old vivisectionist to search for the bleeding brittle earring . You are told to journey east to the shrieking barbed fissure . There you will find the revolting goblin infested tunnels of the spectral mage. It is there that the bleeding brittle earring is rumored to be hidden.

You have been hired by a foreign astrologer to search for the immense befouled shawl of stalking. You are told to journey north to the gorge of the serpent. There you will find the gleaming catacombs of the bear.
It is there that the immense befouled shawl of stalking is rumored to be hidden.

You have been hired by a dwarf zombie to search for the lyre of agility.
You are told to journey west to the scintillating gore-covered fields of death. There you will find the chattering giant's fountain of opposition. It is there that the lyre of agility is rumored to be hidden.

You have been hired by a crippled scout to search for the rune-encrusted trident . You are told to journey northwest to the whispering forest . There you will find the smoking leaf-covered castle. It is there that the rune-encrusted trident is rumored to be hidden.

Sometimes I repaint the heads of action figures

Just because.

Here we have Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn with repainted heads.

R.I.P. Bob 2

Bob Casale of Devo, Dead at 61. :-(

Miniatures Monday

Here we have a spear wielding, torch carrying warrior from the early 1980s.  The miniature is from an old set by Grenadier rebased on a metal washer.  I've never been very good at painting torches, but I think that this one is passable.

Winter Sports: Curling

Today, we had a chance to try out curling with the Pittsburgh Curling Club.  They held a learn to curl event over at the ice rink in Schenley Park, and it was a ton of fun.  I would definitely like to try it again.  Here we have a short video of me on my second attempt at throwing the stone.  It could certainly have gone worse. :-)

Miniatures Monday

Is he a gnome, or is he a dwarf? Does it even matter? He's a barbarian!

Free Map 3 (Tunnels & Trolls)

I've lost the notes for most of the adventures that I've ever run.  I've saved a lot of maps, but the keys to those maps are generally long gone.  Here we have a map from a Tunnels & Trolls adventure that I ran about 15 years ago.  I this case I actually have the map key, so if you're interested keep watching here because when I get a few extra minutes I may scan the whole adventure and post it as a PDF (It's pretty short).

Free Map Day 2

Here is another map from my collection.  It's a small tomb that I did in GIMP.  I used it both for a one shot roleplaying game and as the basis for the tomb in my quite dreadful novel. :-)

Free Map Coastal wilderness with swamp

I love maps, and I love drawing maps.  I don't usually get to actually use the maps that I draw, but that doesn't keep me from making them.  I've decided to start posting my maps here just in case anyone finds them interesting or could use them for something.  So here is my first free map posting.  It's got a lot of mountains and a big swamp in the south.

Miniatures Monday

A pair of mudmen ooze across the cavern floor seeking to envelop unwary delvers!

I'm actually not sure where these miniatures are from.  They aren't from Reaper, so I'm thinking they may actually be old ones from Wizards of the Coast from back in the days when they still did unpainted metal miniatures.