Hungry Hungry Illithids?

Nope, its not ACTUALLY my new idea for a kids boardgame...

But I would play it.

This is actually one of my favourite drawings, where I decided I was going to try and work out how to do semi-realism in my normal style.

... I mean, its clear that realism isn't my thing, but I still love how it came out.

This illithid has no arms! Like a Glukkon from Abes Oddesy!

In case you want to use it in your game of Dungeon World, heres a (somewhat tongue in cheek) statblock for him:

[Scene Snapshots] Smoke on the Water

If you run some sort of Fantasy Game and you'd like a nasty little random encounter/story thread, why not give this a try? (Stats provided for Dungeon World)
When does this Scene take place?: The Party is travelling by ship either at the start or near the end of an adventure.

Who are the Antagonists?: A Great White Selachii (Shark Man) and a shoal of his Remoran servants.

Why should the Party Care?: Because they are about to be Boarded.

The Party are travelling on a ship to (or from) adventure when off in the distance they spot another ship... and fire in the sky. The player ships crew (There should be enough to sail a ship, but not enough that they can suffer losses and safely continue their journey) attempt to signal the other ship.

Players attempting to Discern Reality at this point might notice a few silvery glimmers fall off of the ship into the water with small splashes and no crew on the other. Players who ask 'What is about to happen' might suspect some sort of ambush ahead.

Wether the players attempt to avoid the ship or get close to it, the only warning of what is about to happen is a crewmember (or party member) spotting silvery shapes moving below the waves...

Followed by the ship hitting something.

That something is a Great White Selachii. Unlucky for the players, it's still hungry.

There will be enough Remorans to keep the entire crew busy in the background, the only number that's important are the ones fighting the players. You wont need many because the Selachii is going to be a significant danger for the players - use the Remorans to make hard moves against players who fail rolls.

The Deep Lungs quality is to represent that the Beast-Men are having to essentially hold their breath to fight the players, and whilst they can stay above water for a good 5 minutes before needing a quick dunk to refresh, they can't stay out indefinitely without beginning to suffocate.

Play up on some of the tropes of sharks when describing the Selachii's actions - have him charge towards a player with his eyes rolled back into his skull and if the players dodge, have him go straight through the guard rail in an explosion of splinters and into the water. If a player gets seriously injured and someone fails a roll, have the Selachii go into a horrific blood frenzy where it loses its caution and is only interested in killing.

Don't be afraid to have him bulldoze someone into the water and attempt to drown them.

All whilst this is happening, describe how in the background the Remorans are Injuring/Killing the crew and, in turn are being injured and killed. When all the Remorans fighting the players die, have the ones in the background driven off victoriously by the crew.

When the Selachii dies, have the Remorans attempt to abandon ship quickly, dragging corpses with them.

And then, when everything has gone quiet and the characters have had a chance to catch their breath, point out that the ship is about to run aground on a tropical island or in known but dangerous territory.
Who knows. They might even find out why the Selachii have suddenly started attacking ships.

The Maid of Wynn tells it how it is...

"Christ..." I say to the Maid of Wynn as we sit in bed and she works out what plants she needs to grow in World of Warcraft on a piece of paper with the guild bank open whilst I read a new webcomic I bumped into this afternoon on the loo at work.
"... Did you know its been two years since my last blog post?" I ask her, baffled at how long its actually been.
"Well, that's because you're rubbish" She points out.

Love is kinda like that, I guess. Harsh and delivered whilst the other person is distracted.

On the plus side, she DOES have the right amount of Soy Sauce. Apparantly this is actually a thing.

Now she's spitefully licking an awful lolly she managed to nick from work, because she's reading over my shoulder now she's noticed i'm actually writing...

-----

This is me, once again attempting to get this pile of oddly shaped dice up off of the floor and back into the box.

So, heres a list of what I have (And havn't!) been doing since I last made a post...

Lords of Gossamer and Shadow failed as a campaign. Which was super disappointing. I still hope to one day have a game of it on the go, but I think people have been a little burned on it and are doing other things with their nights now.

Dungeon World was discovered as an RPG which I instantly fell in love with. I seriously adore this game greatly. I'll do another post about that in the future though.

XCOM hasn't really advanced at all as a project. Remember how my previous post to this one two years ago said 'I have a new job now! and opportunity to wargame!'? Yeah, I still have the job but the wargaming is still sparse. I really should get painting again, though...

Victory by Any Means is an interesting little 4x game that I discovered looking for similar titles. I've been looking at the rulebook for ages but have only recently been able to actually give it a go. Its pretty maths intensive, but once you know what you're actually doing it almost opens up...

The Isles of Darkness is still about and i'm still playing the games! A lot of them have had me thinking recently what players can do to improve their own games as well as the games of others, so I might do a few posts about that...

RPG Design. I'm sure every roleplayer thinks about making their own game - I bet some of them even managed it. I've come up with either hacks for other people's games or entirely new ideas without any sort of mechanics behind them or actual effort behind designing them. Maybe i'll have a go at that for real...

At any rate, that's the current state of the Fort.

Better bust out the mortar and repair some of these walls...