Rafe's 23 Month Birthday

29 November 2013 | sila | | Family Pics
 

One more month before the big T-W-O! Whee!

Slightly amused at all the fuss

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

Cartol's Emporium

27 November 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 
A modified Nebulon-B escort frigate

Cartol's Emporium

Jegergryte did not wish to disturb me after I created artwork for his Edge of the Empire group, so he requested an artwork on SWAG. After a month or so without being picked up - and I had some free time to spare - I yoinked it

The drawing of the modified Kuat Drive Yards EF-76 Nebulon-B escort frigate would be used for the cover of his Edge of the Empire homebrewed supplement entitled Cartol's Emporium.

To make the Emporium seem busy with business, I also included other ships in the artwork. Ships from campaigns I ran or played in! Clockwise from lower left:

  • Nova Coyote - a Corellian YT-1760 from WOTC's Star Wars Gamer from Team Sabredart the SWAG Clone Wars D6 campaign.
  • A Bad Example - a SoroSuub Personal Luxury 3000 space yacht from A Bad Example in the Spacelanes our D6 campaign here a couple of years ago - originally used for Lando's Lady Luck and recently seen in The Clone Wars TV series.
  • Lava Jaeger - Corellian YT-1300 from the ongoing Edge of the Empire campaign I'm running for my son titled Edged By The Empire.
  • Firebird - a Mon Calamari MC4E jump freighter, the only original ship here from Strikeforce Enteague my very first campaign back in 1989. 

The supplement will be released December 2013. Watch this space for further announcements.

 

64 Months

23 November 2013 | sila | | Family Pics
 

So we are now at 64 months!

Love this shot!

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

Driving a Juggernaut

22 November 2013 | Hisham | | Humour, Star Wars
 

Kuat Drive Yards HAV/w A6 Juggernaut drivers seem to have an enjoyable and rewarding job.

Because they look like they don't have a care in the world.

I wonder if they also have CB radio

Also, roadkill just wipes right off.

Blatant droidcism!

Also, you can just run uppity asshole bikers off the road and break their stuff with impunity.

Also, they were shooting at us

 Post script: Well, yes, obviously I'd been visiting some Toys R Us somewhere in the city.

 

Jegergryte's Crew

17 November 2013 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Some months back, I drew some player characters for Jegergryte's Edge of the Empire RPG player characters. I pushed my digital painting abilities, exercising my skills so they would be closer to what they should be if I am to land better freelance art jobs.

Jace

Jace Maverick is a swashbuckler with a vibrorapier and a charming smile. I thought I'd give him a costume design resembling the Naboo Security Force's.

The Kraken

Thracken "The Kraken" Artox is a grimy Rodian gadgeteer with a cyborg eye and a MerrSonn Type-434 "DeathHammer" heavy blaster pistol which obviously has been through a lot.

Doc

Doc Ariela Mengalic a.k.a. Ghia Necil Zilar is a Colonist / Doctor. She has a Tenloss DXR-6 disruptor rifle, a medpac on her hip and a bandolier of ready-to-use stimpacks.

Blue

Walian "Blue" Mothma is a human Force sensitive assassin who wields a BlasTech A280 blaster rifle, with a underslung grenade launcher.

Che Rohn

Che Rohn is a Cathar thief who wields a Merr-Sonn Quick6 blaster pistol with a grappling hook launcher attachment and a wrist-mounted dart shooter.

Syris

SY-RS2003.12 is a unique pilot smuggler droid with a Thunderer T-6 blaster pistol.

These are awesome player character concepts. Wish I was in this campaign with these characters.

 

An Academic Award

15 November 2013 | Hisham | | Family Pics
 

For the first time ever, Irfan gets an award for an academic achievement in school. I not just proud of him, but grateful to all my friends in meatspace and cyberspace who gave Ain and I suggestions and solutions to how to get Irfan interested in reading and to learn, even as I suspected of him having a mild learning disability. Some of them even sent books for him to read.

V is for Verisimilitude
Inline kids
Certificate!

Also, when Irfan played more tabletop games this year, he gets better at his studies. Coincidence? I think not!

 

Eclipse Phase: The Standoff at the Cumulus Hotel

11 November 2013 | Hisham | | Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star continued from the previous session.

Location: Aphrodite Prime, about 50 km above Venus' surface.

Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina (and Wandering Ina-α) the infomorphs, William Cable Jr. - paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut - neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph

Inactive PersonnelBadal Jones - Lunar Lagrange Alliance (LLA) envoy and Boris Ivanov Rasputin the Second - a neo-hominid lawyer in the shaper morph.

Mission: To provide security and investigative services to Badal's superior the LLA's ambassador during an art show at the Cumulus Hotel, where reclusive posthuman artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos from the asteroid 163693 Atira would be showcasing alien sculptures he collected from the extraterrestrial Factors. LLA had intercepted a vague communique about a terrorist attack during the event and would like the attack thwarted. Their secondary mission was to help Gretchen Ambelina of Pax Familae by covertly disrupting the Marquis' event which will deal a blow to the terraforming efforts of Venus, something the Solid Ground Initiaive (SGI) was a proponent of, and what Venusian terrorist groups like the Free Fall Network (FFN) were against.

Crossposted on Obsidian Portal.

A banner year

A Happy Place

DANAI found herself frolicking in a green field beneath a bright blue sky and under a nourishing yellow sun. Baffled by current events, she looked down and discovered that she was in a body of a living fox, red bushy tail and all. What had happened before? She was uncertain.

Suddenly a window opened in the sky. A man looked at her from behind the window. Just when she wondered why there was a window in the sky, another one slid open seemingly across from the first window. Another man was there looking at her.

He then looked at the first man and asked, What does the fox say?

Then DANAI woke up from her strange dream.

 

Night's Black Agents: The Quiet Week At Brentford

04 November 2013 | Hisham | | GOKL Actual Play, Nights Black Agents, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

I missed the last two Night's Black Agents RPG sessions.

Since inflitrating the freighter Heimdall in the Irish Sea, Nikolai Kaidanovsky, Sami Harkonen, Shiina "Misha" Mikado, Zlatan Kljulic and Abraham von Helsing the Russian borzoi hound (all wearing keffiyehs - even Abe) escaped and sank the ship killing the vampire hounds in the cargo compartment. They abducted the surviving technician Jones who told them everything he knew about the Emartech Pharmaceuticals' and Inish Medical Group's plans to use the haemocanis parasite-infected blood from Eastern Europe dogs for nefarious purposes. Before returning to London, Jones had to take a walk with Zlatan because he knew too much and could identify the agents.

It was time to stake out Inish. They rendezvous with Jacob Novazembla - who had returned from Italy - at their headquarters, while Misha had to forego the mission to visit her daughter. Before heading to Brentford in Ealing, Sami put Abe in the care of his dog handler contact out in the country.

The entire town of Brentford was under the thumb of Inish Medical. The Inish headquarters complex was a large building overlooking a golf course. A lot of the localtown services were contracted to Inish, such as security, medical and waste disposal. Information out of the town was monitored and filtered by Inish.

The founder of Inish Medical, Donal Inish, had died in a helicopter crash many years ago, leaving a wife. Among the confirmed vampires at Inish were Farris Barrar the Vice President of Safety who was the one that Misha saw tear the small-time mob boss Gary Camon into pieces. They also suspected one Mister Chow of being a vampire as well.

Jacob's contact at Blackberry Benny Snowden informed him that Inish was installing hardware and software in their servers that would allow encrypted communications for important employees via brand new Blackberry 10s. Jacob would infiltrate the heart of Inish Medical as "Rory Winston" one of the Blackberry employees tasked with installing and configuring the new gear. His real mission is to install a back door to their secured servers which the agents would be able to access.

Jacob, as Rory, got in easily enough. He was chaperoned by Anise, a beautiful Inish employee. While Jacob charmed the IT team over the course of five days, Nikolai, Sami and Zlatan stayed in B&Bs in town monitoring the situation. The IT team loved Jacob. They even went on a pub crawl that led to a brawl with some football hooligans, which the IT team later said they'd enjoyed! Jacob also learnt that Jessica Ellis, Zlatan's failed date (to put it lightly) and former Emartech employee from the Cardiff mission, was an informal security consultant there as well.

It was during the fifth day that Jacob, escorted by Anise, bumped into Vienna "Vin" Cesarescu, the vampire who was once their prisoner. She had been a member of the Camon Gang who was abducted by Inish Medical after the murder of Gary Camon and destruction of the group. Vin looked pale and anaemic.

In the deserted hallway, Vin hypnotised Anise, clouding her mind while she pleaded Jacob for help. She would meet him in the Rehabilitation Clinic level of the headquarters the next morning.

The pharmaceutical industry has gone to the dogs!

AND NOW THE CONCLUSION!

Day 06: The Penultimate Day

Information From Vienna

The Rehab Clinic took an entire ground floor of the Inish headquarters. It faced the golf course, although there was a security moat that prevented golfers from entering the facility grounds. Sami and Zlatan took up a reconnaissance position from within the bushes in the golf course. Encrypted comms allowed them radio contact with each other. Once in a while, golf balls would zip near their heads dangerously.

 

Halloween Shenanigans

01 November 2013 | sila | | Family Pics
 

All Hallow's Eve, an event that was eagerly awaited in the Renstrom household - at least by one little girl in particular. And this year, Papa said we could get a pumpkin and carve it (after some begging on the part of the particular little girl).

Happy Halloween!