01 November 2015
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Hisham |
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RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Stark Future of San Francisco
Last time on Call of Cthulhu (back in June) our solo protagonist, the young Detective DJ Stark failed to stop whatever unholy occult occurence at Horton Opera House. Stabbed by cultists, blind luck caused a passerby to notice him and call for an ambulance.
Episode 5
The incident cost Stark another two weeks in the hospital, but he insisted on returning to duty quickly. Mr. Chao had all but disappeared, and there was no sign of the cultists in the opera house. There was no clue as to what the swirling bright light that he saw before he fell down the trapdoor.
At the end of his shift he was approached by his new partner Detective Alex Sim, a young Asian woman who knew of Stark's proclivities with investigating strange and unexplained things and getting into severe injuries. She warned him that she did not wish for her career to be jeopardised by such happenings. She said, "If anything happens that is even a tiny bit strange, I will report you and drop you like a bad habit fast."
Soon, Stark returned to the opera house for the first time since he was hospitalised. Armed with a shotgun and a flashlight, he crossed the two-week old police tape and scoured the building.
But he found nothing.
Everything that happened before this point was played when we were in Sitiawan a last month. We were interrupted then. We continued earlier today at home.
Without nothing to go on, Stark started to drive back to his apartment.
At a stoplight, the world shook violently. The quake caused the roads to shudder and the streetlamps to shudder and spark. A streetlamp beside Stark's car fell toward him. He hit the accelerator pedal and screeched out of the way safely. (36 out of 40% Drive Auto)
26 October 2015
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Hisham |
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Humour, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
I might have overdone it with the "Those Stories About What Happened" meme adapted from the latest Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer, pertaining to West End Games' Star Wars The Roleplaying Game material. It probably what Han would tell these kids about the Galactic Civil War shenanigans as played by Star Wars D6 RPG players.
First, here is a general flavour of memories of role-playing games as a general, not just limited to Star Wars.
Then, there was that one time Sila stole Zardra's stun cloak during Tatooine Manhunt when she and Puggles Trodd launched an attack on her party when they were asleep.
Disclaimer! I've never actually played Starfall:
Not to mention the exploits of the Black Curs team.
And finally, from Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments From The Rim, a gag written by a tabloid-esque news outlet in the Galaxywide Newsnet chapter of the book:
Addendum (27/10/2015): Don't forget about the Rabid Mynock swoop gang!
16 August 2015
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Hisham |
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Humour, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
Once upon a time, Shanna Toarinar the bounty hunter stole a captured A-Wing Fighter from the Empire. Soon after, she was recruited to be the first member of the Strikeforce Enteague. Thus begins the Star Wars RPG campaign - using West End Games's D6 system - that lasted for 10 years in real time as well as game time.
Today Lucasfilm released a cast photo of their new Star Wars film: Strikeforce Enteague the Movie*. With Felicity Jones as Shanna Toarinar, Diego Luna as Ace Browning Crossfire and Donnie Yen as Ben-One-Howel. Download the Worlds of the Enteague Sector D6 pdf supplement that I made here!
* Sigh. I wish. Sigh. But seriously, doesn't the Rogue One cast photo looks like someone's Star Wars D6 (or an Age of Rebellion) rebel commando party? Sigh**.
**Siiigh!!!
(Just in case this needs to be said: Yes, that is a promotional photo from Rogue One with names of characters from my own RPG campaign. No, there is no and will never be a Strikeforce Enteague film. Probably. Maybe.)
03 August 2015
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Hisham |
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Artwork, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
Recently, Brett Pisinski of Wicked North Games commissioned a group artwork of the adventuring party for his Star Wars Rebels D6 RPG campaign. Here is the final illustration:
(L-R): Kurshk Sho'kre human cyborg from Alderaan, Liakan the Wookiee mercenary, Voss Dorn the Kel Dor former-Jedi and Suna Foss the Togruta cargo hauler captain.
31 July 2015
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Hisham |
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Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
In a transhuman or posthuman setting, you are able to enhance your body and your mind with cybernetics or nootropics, or you could discard your body and drive a totally different body which might be organic or synthetic, or you could discard physicality and live as a ghost in a machine, in one of many simulated realities. Human minds are becoming more and more posthuman, being able to share their experiences, store their memories in exocortexes, fork their minds and reintegrate their minds later, and to create simulations upon simulations upon simulations for purposes that would eventually become incomprehesible to the human mind.
Players straddle that point in the post-scarcity setting where anything could be created with a 3D printer, from food to entire space habitats. Just died? Retrieve your cortical stack where your memories are stored, print out a new body and insert the stack into the receptacle in the brain, and you're back. Are you a new individual or are you the same? What if you fork your mind and there are dozens of you walking around in either similar bodies as you or in different-looking bodies? Are they all still you?
These are questions posed when you play RPGs like Eclipse Phase. Of course it's not all just heavy discussion on philosophy. You also get to shoot bad guys with railguns and beam weapons.
Here is the first set of Transhuman Heroes paperminis I created on Patreon. These are all organic human bodies. No mechanical bodies, uplift bodies nor bodies adapted for conditions such as like in the skies of Venus or the seas of Europa.
Paperminis for those other types of bodies will be released soon. As usual, the download is a PDF of two sets of six characters as seen in the photo above.
In the meantime, please download and assemble them from the Patreon creation page here. Also, support me on Patreon for me to be able to create more paperminis for tabletop RPGs!
22 June 2015
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Hisham |
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RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Stark Future of San Francisco
Last time (a year and 4 days ago in real time), despite being badly injured and walking on crutches, Detective DJ Stark (played by Irfan) succeeded in thwarting the scheme of the Cult of the Pale Nurses in their bid to summon the ultradimensional being Sharakh-Kheth from crossing over into our universe and utterly demolishing the Saint Agatha Medical Centre in Brisbane, San Francisco.
(Yesterday afternoon we continued the Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign to see how Detective Stark was faring. Polyhedrals and paperminis deployed, Irfan wondered what Lovecraftian creatures and machinations he would encounter in this session. It was six weeks later in game time...)
Episode 4
Stark had been back to work at his precinct for two weeks, getting quickly bored by a desk job. His phone rang. A familiar elderly voice could be heard.
"Mr. Chao," said Stark.
"I take it my handwritten manuscripts were destroyed at the Saint Agatha? No matter. Meet me tonight at nine. I will have something for you. You are worthy of it."
It was just after 8.00 PM and an overcast sky darkened the dusk. Finishing up some paperwork, he started to leave for Chao's restaurant.
"Stark!" his boss Greta Hack called him from her office. When he sat at her desk, she said, "Word is you're bored with your desk job? I'm putting you back on the streets. Here's your new case."
Stark picked up the case file. Caldwell Broome, 50 year old antique dealer, had been missing from his office for a week. "You'll meet your new partner, Alex Sim, a rookie tomorrow."
"Thanks, chief."
"Listen, Stark," Captain Hack muttered. "Everyone knows how you lost your last partner. Please make sure nothing happens to your new one."
"Sure thing, chief."
Stark's Shenanigans Spills into the Streets of San Francisco
10 June 2015
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Hisham |
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Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
Lovecraftian / 1920s Pulp Investigators paperminis have been released on Patreon! For this batch, I drew six new artwork, namely: the Actress, the Game Hunter, the Professor, the Singer (or the Musician), the Farmer and the Writer who looks a bit like H.P. Lovecraft! Download them from the Patreon page here!
The new group meets a Nightgaunt! But not for dinner! The Writer stays all the way at the back!
But then the Writer gets surrounded by a trio of Mi-go.
The whole gang together! For the higher resolution Mariner-class release, or the Voyager-class release which includes a printable pdf of character artwork please support the Patreon and download them here.
15 May 2015
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Hisham |
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Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
New Lovecraftian / 1920s Pulp Investigators paperminis have been released on Patreon! For this batch, I drew and setup a range of characters on the pdf, namely: the Librarian, the Hobo, the Dandy, the Alienist, the Grave Digger and Aviator! I've always wanted to draw a hobo. Download from the Patreon page here!
Read some suggestions on how to assemble the paperminis here!
Let's see how both batches look like assembled after glued, folded and cut as seen above.
The Alienist, Aviator and Hobo come face-to-face with some Flying Polyps.
The Dandy walk down a street at the bad side of town and are tailed by some sort of strange hounds.
The Grave Digger: "Why does it have to be Ghouls?"
The Librarian break up a scuffle between the Mi-go and the Nightgaunt.
Here's everybody from both batches, bunched together for a group photo, with the Dandy attempting to grandstand.
Download the Deep Ones and the Hounds of Tindalos paperminis here.
Download the Nightgaunts and Flying Polyps paperminis here,
Download the Ghoul and Mi-go paperminis here.
Also, BLOG POST #1400!!! Huzzah!
05 May 2015
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Hisham |
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Books, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
One of the gifts given to me by Kai and the Gamers of KL crew on our trip back to Kuala Lumpur was Lords of Nal Hutta, the recently-released sourcebook for Hutts and Hutt Space for Star Wars Edge of the Empire roleplaying game by Fantasy Flight Games. Bonus: it was co-written by Gary Astleford.
It would certainly help my gamemaster (GM) the campaign I ran for GOKL, entitled "Modesty Blazing", because we were about to meet Sassatania the Hutt, Zeltron pilot Darter Kel's former fling and daughter of Teemo the Hutt.
An illustration of Sassatania can be found in this blog post. Coincidentally, several locations described in the book had been featured in two different Star Wars D6 campaigns I ran for GOKL. (Well, one campaign and one one-shot session.)
Sriluur of course showed up in A Bad Example in the Spacelanes campaign which was never finished.
Kwenn Station was where the player characters started in The Rancid Putrefaction of a Cosmic Caterwauling Cabal one-shot game.
So many other features in this book, from a list of Hutt kajidics, vehicles, weapons and Hutt Space systems from Kintan to Toydaria, that I will try to include in future Edge of the Empire games I run.
Especially ones that lead the players into wretched hives of scum and villainy.
28 April 2015
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Hisham |
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Books, Role Playing Games
Copies of roleplaying game books arrived today from DwD Studios, sent by Bill Logan!
As has been documented on the blog before, I've played BareBones Fantasy with Irfan the first time here, then during International TableTop Day here and finally here when he experienced his first player character (PC) death. The boy also gamemastered (GM) his first ever RPG with BareBones Fantasy last year!
I'm hoping he'll hone his GMing skills some more with the easy to play BareBones d00% lite system, and eventually play some contemporary spies in Covert Ops.This will help him develop his oratory, problem solving and critical thinking skills.
Thanks, Bill! I will do just that!
11 April 2015
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Hisham |
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Edged By The Empire, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
Edged by the Empire
Episode 10 Together Again For The First Time
Previously on Edged by the Empire...
It was International Tabletop Day again, and like last year we played Star Wars Edge of the Empire again. However we played not on a table, but on the floor.With the 15 XP carried over from the previous session, Irfan bought the Grit talent for his smuggler character Hondo Pash, increasing his Strain. The finale for the campaign that started on January 2013 with Escape from Mos Shuuta begins...
One Man Revolution
Radiation and stellar gases swamped the Shadda-Bi-Boran system from its primary star. A squadron of five Star Destroyers aided by numerous smaller corvettes and tenders manoeuvred themselves to surround a three-klick wide asteroid that sheltered a secret Imperial base that belonged to Admiral Keargan Kanu.
As the cordon closed in on the flat lump of rock, Admiral Kanu was surrounded by his newly-reunited family, from his estranged wife Doro Pash, their 21-year-old son the young smuggler pilot Hondo Pash and their 9-year-old daughter Yuzy Pash. The two astromech droids R2-8D8 and R5-K2 slid down the ramp of the YT-1300 light freighter Lava Jaeger, screaming their warning of the incoming Imperial fleet.
The paper miniatures ready for action at Shadda-Bi-Boran
Writhing in pain at their feet was Hondo's armoured and heavily robed shipmate and gunslinger Giin Lawquane. It was Giin who had called the Imperial fleet into the system to ambush them. Suddenly, Giin stopped screaming and fell unconscious. Kanu dismissed his troops who saluted the Admiral and hurried to the elevator of the main hangar bay. Two remained: a pair of black-armored storm commandos who immediately flanked the Admiral as guards, whom were introduced as Lieutenants Kildruun and Gundeep.
The Imperial fleet was preventing them from leaving and returning to Admiral Kanu's safeworld, where he kept the family of his staff and troops safe and before they planned to vanish into the Outer Rim away from the Empire's grasp.
Meanwhile, the large tactical hologram above them showed that shuttles and small transports were launching out from smaller bays on the asteroid base. Turbolaser cannons from the Star Destroyers fired on the small, fleeing fleet. A shuttle and a freighter were shredded into superheated debris before the surviving ships jumped to hyperspace.
Admiral Keargan Kanu turned to Hondo...
...and gave him one of the metal alloy cylinders from his jacket pocket. He said, "Take this rank cylinder. You would be able to access any computer and open any doors in this base with it."
03 April 2015
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Hisham |
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Books, Role Playing Games
When I was reading the Laundry RPG rulebook away from home in Lunas, I thought I'd take a photo of the "What is a Roleplaying Game" section of the book and post it on Google Plus and Twitter. Here's the link on G+. Over 130 reshares!
And on Twitter the picture achieved close to a phenomenal 1,100 retweets!
Here's the screencap I took when it hit a thousand retweets. Even Cubicle 7, the publisher of the Laundry RPG, mentioned it on their official website!
As usual I'm blaming the viral outbreak on the many-angled ones living at the bottom of the Mandelbrot Set.
01 January 2015
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Hisham |
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Edged By The Empire, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
Edged by the Empire
Episode 09 Adversity of the Unexpected
Previously on Edged by the Empire...
It's the first of January. Irfan didn't spend any of his 15 XP. He rolled up three Light Side Destiny Points, and triggered no Obligations with 99 on the percentile dice.
Ticket to Ride
A pair of grey Aratech 74-Z speeder bikes - modified to have no flight ceiling - flew westward from the city of Shoribus, the capital city of Kabal in the Mayagil Sector, on a personal mission. Smuggler Hondo Pash's sister Yuzy and mother Doro were abducted by his father, whom he recently learned was an Imperial Admiral named Keargan Kanu. To retrieve them, he would have to find Admiral Kanu. The only clue as to where Kanu might be is his secret weapon cache located upon the vast Skolaris Cliff.
As they passed over thick swamps with winding rivers and the occasional gargantuan trees that towered over everything else, Giin Lawquane, the armored mercenary and security officer in the other speeder spoke via his helmet comlink, "Bothth. What if Yuzy doethn't want to come back with uth?"
"I don't know what I'll do, Giin."
"You know. It'th been a while thinthe I conthidered anyone to be friendth. In fact, it'th been ten yearth thinthe I let anyone near enough for me to call them a friend. Hondo, I conthider you, my friend."
"Thanks."
Two more 74-Z speeder bikes. painted dark red and piloted by droids, flew up from the swamp canopy in pursuit. The first droid fired his mounted blaster, but missed. This, of course, captured Hondo and Giin's attention.
Giin said, "You thee, bothth, I only do thingth like thith for my friendth." And he veered to the left then to the right, trying to skew the droid's concentration. Hondo's DL-17 blaster pistol was in his hand as he spun and fired. A red bolt struck one of the droid's arm which jerked down, pulling the handlebars downward. The droid's speeder dropped down and rammed into a large monolithic tree.
The remaining droid was unperturbed by Giin's riding and fired at Hondo and scoring a glancing blow. Hondo, still in control of his superficially damaged vehicle, aimed and blasted at his attacker. The droid's chest erupted in a miasma of sparks and smoke, but he hung on to his speeder.
The BlasTech EE-3 boomstick is a glorious boomstick.
Suddenly, Giin braked and came alongside the injured droid, his EE-3 blaster rifle unslung. The droid, still shaken by the blast, reacted too late. The point blank shot disintegrated the droid, a beat-up Z-X3, he noticed, and the riderless speeder spiraled down and crashed into a wide river beneath them.
The two sped on wondering why they were attacked.
31 December 2014
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Hisham |
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Edged By The Empire, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
Edged by the Empire
Episode 08 On The Trail of Dad
Previously on Edged by the Empire...
Irfan had 35 XPs, so he blew it on a couple of more Talents, namely a second Skilled Jockey, a second Galaxy Mapper and Improved Dead to Rights. He was free of any Obligations for this episode after rolling an 81. (His Obligation: Family is 30 and Giin's Obligation: Bounty is 20). Finally the Destiny pool was 2 light side and one dark side.
We still don't really have a table for a tabletop game so we play on our moving boxes.
On his homewold of Blue Nirvada, the young smuggler Hondo Pash, the captain of the Lava Jaeger has discovered that both his parents, long thought to be dead, were still alive and appeared to be mortal enemies. His mother was Doro Pash and his father, the Imperial Admiral Keargan Kanu. Upon Hondo and his armoured mercenary guard Giin Lawquane rescuing his aunt Zosy Pash from Imperial agents, Zosy revealed that it was a trap to capture Hondo. However, when the trap was sprung, Admiral Kanu captured Hondo's 9-year-old sister Yuzy instead, making the jump to lightspeed in a Lambda-class shuttle in space...
Snow swept through and over a black caldera - known as Obsidian Island - that formed a ring-like atoll on the glistening icy, white plain surrounding it as far as the eye could see and the blizzard would allow to see.
Three figures walked through the snow in the open streets of the city in the inner rim of the caldera. Hondo, Giin and Aunt Zosy headed for the Lava Jaeger after admitting local Trandoshan police officer Klikwask - who was badly injured during Zosy's rescue - in a bacta tank at the public infirmary.
"What do we do bothth?" Giin's eeriely modulated voice said through his full helmet.
"We have to find Yuzy."
"How, bothth?"
"I'm going to track Yuzy's comlink."
23 November 2014
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Hisham |
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Artwork, Role Playing Games
I was commissioned by HermaDolph to illustrate ten alien species artwork for the Alterkine role playing game.
Behind the scenes story: I completed one piece of this series before the 8-year-old Linux laptop I've been using for work finally died. Details will be told in a future entry. I completed the rest with a underpowered netbook which took longer than it usually did.
In any case, here they are in alphabetical order:
Candebreth
Edekin
Grandrite
Kaubeth
Keliswen
Medurr
Neryak
Perakor
Saremwen
Watchi
Check out the Alterkine: Player's Handbook at DriveThruRPG here!
09 November 2014
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Hisham |
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Eclipse Phase, GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
Static. A disjoint in time, and perhaps space. Venus is a thread in another wisp of memory.
I see red and grey skies over the maglev as it speeds toward the city of Ashoka through the dry, rocky Martian desert. I used to be Hokusai the neo-octopus artist, on the run from Nine Lives the soul stealing crime cartel. Now I walk on two legs in a ghost morph, in a physical body optimised for stealth operations. With me is the female async Quill, her telepathic mind percolating with a thousand paper cranes.
Back in Valles-New Shanghai, we are the only two members of Fastball Express hypercorp who answer the VR call from one Mr. Miyazaki. He gives us the time and invitation for an upcoming Zanzibar marketplace that would occur in 30 hours in Ashoka. There a neo-gorilla named Winston will be attempting to sell something valuable and rare: a handheld controller for a Pandora Gate.
My cover is Shankar, a game hunter. Quill is Devi. As soon as we disembark, Shankar and Devi blend into the Ashoka afternoon crowd.
30 October 2014
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Hisham |
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Edged By The Empire, RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
Edged by the Empire
Episode 07 I Was Young When I Left Home
Previously on Edged by the Empire...
Irfan did not use any of his 15 XP to upgrade his character Hondo Pash. He rolled Destiny Points for the PC and the two main NPCs, who are basically auxiliary PCs anyway.
Blowin' In The Wind
Recently departed from the port of Silverlake in the Naboo system, the Lava Jaeger flew into Blue Nirvada's atmosphere, a frozen ocean world orbiting a blue dwarf star in the Tarabba Sector.
However, there was a vicious snowstorm along their flight path toward Obsidian Island, the hometown of Captain Hondo Pash and his 9-year-old sister Yuzy Pash where they grew up. The armoured mercenary gunslinger Giin Lawquane in the co-pilot seat with the BlasTech EE-3 blaster rifle slung on his back asked, "Do we wait it out?"
Hondo took a second to ruminate, then decided, "Let's go in." The YT-1300 light freighter plunged into the maelstrom of ice and snow. Buffetted by incredible bursts of wind, Giin was thrown off the co-pilot station. Astromech R2-8D8 rushed to help with the controls, but a tremendous downdraft slammed down hard onto the Lava Jaeger. Hondo was unable to control the ship which then crashed into the snow-swept ice fields beneath. The ship skidded on the plains.
Giin Lawquane is floored.
Artoo beeped a warning: They were skidding at high speed towards a large patch of rock that rose above the ice field. Hondo fired the ship thrusters to bring the ship to a stop before they crashed into it. Damaged, they decided to wait out the storm. Yuzy served everyone meiloorun-flavoured ice cream.
14 October 2014
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Hisham |
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Artwork, Misc Sci-Fi, Role Playing Games
Last year I illustrated some pictures for Balneum Blue, an article for Star Frontiers RPG. And after more than a year it's finally released in the pages (and the cover) of Star Frontiersman magazine issue 25!
Here's the cover I did, of some gigantic floating aquatic jellyfish creatures called the hydrozoan.
The planet known as Balneum Blue has an intelligent native species called the Gnatha that live in biotech coral cities.
All the image above needs is a map of all the train stops.
12 October 2014
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Hisham |
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Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!
The second batch of paper miniatures for the Patreon campaign has been released for patrons. Six flavours of Dwarven characters for your fantasy role-playing game campaign! Also included is a bonus PDF of a squad of armed Orc warriors.
Don't forget to check out other posts for free downloads!
29 September 2014
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Hisham |
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Patreon Paperminis, Role Playing Games
Here's a quick tutorial on what to do with the paperminis once you've downloaded them from the Hishgraphics Papermini Patreon page and printed them out.
My free paperminis earlier were a no-frills, plain flat affairs which had no base for them to stand on. Those paper minis, when assembled, required a base assembly. For the Patreon paperminis, I thought I'd include something extra: several options for bases.
Here are some thoughts on how you can assemble the minis.
The above is a printout of the free downloadable PDF sample of skeletons and wraiths from my post at the Patreon page. It was printed onto white card stock.
Then I sliced and diced it to extract the papermini elements. As can be seen above, each element folds back onto itself on top (towards the papermini's head) along a blue dashed line. But it also has base tabs on the bottom (towards its legs). When assembled, the base tabs fold out to form a square base.