Babs

14 July 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Comics
 
Barbara Gordon

I drew Babs.

Specifically the new Batgirl costume designed by Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr.

Also, yay! 1300th entry!

 

The Blasphemous Bookcase at the 10th Floor

06 July 2014 | Hisham | | Books, Family Pics
 

The bookcase was getting messier and messier. So Ain thought it was time for a bookcase cleaning. I helped, but I also took some photos.

All these books below were all over the place. I thought this cleanup would be a good time to put them all together on one shelf.Maybe I'll call it the Legends shelf. *snerk*

The Star Wars Trek

Here are more photos of the selection of novels we have on the shelves. Some of these books I bought myself, but more than 60% of these belongs to Sila, which she bought during or just after college. She brought back home loads for me to read. I have yet to read them all. Also, most of her books are back in our home library in Sitiawan and not with me.

Is that a Doctor Who book without the Doctor?

This is a Vancian book, this is:

 

Westward Comp Copy!

01 July 2014 | Hisham | | Books, Role Playing Games
 

A package arrived the other day...

Roger Bochs of Alpha Flight

... from Brett Pisinski of Wicked North Games. It be the complimentary copy of Westward RPG! Westward is a game of steampunk western game setting  on an human-colonized extrasolar planet after the colony ship Chrysalis drifted for decades and came to rest here.

Using the Cinema 6 system, players and gamemasters play and create adventures around humans whose ancestors were marooned on the planet Westward centuries ago. Lack of conventional power generation has created new technology that uses exotic local minerals and steam to build airships and steam-powered mech. Politics of the cities and settlements make for great conflict for players to embroil themselves in. And backstabbing politics, feral humans, deadly alien creatures and lethal hazards await adventurers in the waterless badlands of Westward.

Cover and

Also in the package is a handy GM screen.

A shield of some sort - from feral players no doubt

The image below is something I'd never thought would happen. On the left, my artwork. On the right, art made by Mike Vilardi, who has been my favourite Star Wars RPG artist for more than twenty years! I can't believe I'm published in the same game as Mike is! I'm still trying to be an official Star Wars artist myself.

Bucket list, minus one

Here are some of my location artwork created digitally!

digital colours

Here are some of my creature artwork created traditionally! Actual inks and watercolours!

analog pixels

Some playable character template artwork beautifully done by Ryan Rhodes. There are a lot of interesting character templates you can play in the Westward setting.

Asok Yeesrim's great designs and colour palette

Gennifer Bone did a ton of tech designs from hand equipment to weapons to trains to steamechs to airships! 

A "Delimbitnator" is an awesome name

Here's her one of her drawing of a steamech. There are more in the book!

A variant of this suit is on the cover

I will need to digest all the information of the setting from the book, but I will give this game a try some time in the future. Lots of mysteries to be solved in the arid badlands of Westward. Meanwhile, download a pay-what-you-want low resolution version here or download a Premium version of the PDF here.

You can also order the physical book from Paizo.com here.

It was great to have the opportunity to collaborate with Brett, Jeremy Streeter, Ryan, Gennifer, all the writers and artists like Wayne Humfleet, Peter Schweighofer, Deborah Teramis Christian, Rob Chope, Alex Gustafson, Rich Woodall and others for this project!

 

Rafe's 30 Month Birthday

29 June 2014 | sila | | Family Pics
 

Adik is two and a half! 30 months old! Happy half birthday, little boy!

Innocent and a little amused

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

Call of Cthulhu: Cult of the Pale Nurses

23 June 2014 | Hisham | | Role Playing Games, Stark Future of San Francisco
 

The first confirmed recorded appearance of the Pale Nurses was in a hospice in Massachussetts in 1925, although there might have been unconfirmed activity hundreds of years before in hospices and monasteries that cared for the sick. As far as investigators and researchers are able to tell, the Pale Nurses have a blood pact sealed with some form of magic to relieve pain from the suffering. They have since come to believe that all human life is a constant suffering of pain and it is their duty to remove it by killing all life. When first they only slowly take over hospitals and kill off the patients, they have now moved on to summoning powerful extradimensional entities to wipe out all life on Earth.

Constant use of their arcane rites causes their skill to turn pale and sallow, with sunken eyes. Their nails are elongated and becomes tough and sharp as steel blades. Newer acolytes that has not undergone physical changes prefer to use scalpels and other blades to kill. Because of this there is a constant glamour spell about them to maintain the lie of human appearances among other hospital staff and patients. These cultists do not wear modern nurses' uniforms and the glamour spell also prevents others from realising this, even after being noticed. Sometimes the Head Nurse is the one maintaining the glamour spell which only would collapse upon her death.

Although there have been more women than men sighted where the cult appears, there has been a few recorded instances of an all-men group around the world.

Nurse Cutler

CULT OF THE PALE NURSES, Alleviators of Pain

STR 14
CON 12
SIZ 13
INT 13
POW 14
DEX 14
APP 09
EDU 14
SAN 10
HP 10
Damage Bonus
: +1d4
Weapons: Finger blades d8+2 (+db)
Skills
: First Aid 60%, Hospital Administration 65%, Human Physiology 80%, Medicine 30%, Slashing 40%, Spot Hidden 40%, Tracking 35%
Spells: Pose Mundane

I made them up for the Call of Cthulhu game last week.

Retroactively created 26th March 2016
 

71 Months

22 June 2014 | sila | | Family Pics
 

71 months! One more month and the girl is six years old! How amazing is that? Where does the time go?

My baby girl

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

Call of Cthulhu: Healthcare Blues

18 June 2014 | Hisham | | RPG Actual Play, RPG Irfan Plays, Role Playing Games, Stark Future of San Francisco
 
Retroactively created 26th March 2016

Episode 3

Last time on Call of Cthulhu (almost two years ago in realtime), Detective D.J. Stark played by Irfan (the youngest Call of Cthulhu player ever? I have no idea) killed his partner who turned out to be a ghoul cultist and prevented an entity called Sharakh-Kheth from emerging from its universe into ours. However he was badly injured - lots of broken bones - and was hospitalised.

Three weeks later he was moved from intensive care into a shared hospital ward at Saint Agatha Medical Centre in Brisbane, San Francisco, located all the way in Firth Park Canyon.

Doctor Geisler was his doctor. His wardmates were three other elderly men Beck, Dolce and Nunez. The ward had one window that had an iron grill installed. Stark could see trees outside from the third story of the hospital.

Everything is awesome!

Doctor Geisler looking at Stark at his bed. Beside him and by the door is Beck. In front of Beck is Dolce. In front of Stark is Nunez.

Day One

In the morning, Eleanor Stark a professor of linguistics and mother to D.J. came to visit. She mothered him, telling him that Dr. Geisler had told her that he would be released after a week. He would be undergoing physiotherapy every day in the meantime. Before she left, Eleanor gave him a package addressed to him and hastily wrapped in brown paper that she found at his house.

Once left alone, he unwrapped the package. Inside was an old book with yellowing pages. But before he could continue reading Beck called out to him to introduce himself. Dolce joined in. Nunez, the oldest of them, did not. He was awake, sitting up but appeared catatonic. Beck said, "Mister Nunez here was fine when he first got here. A few days ago he woke up and never spoke again. Just looks into space."

Stark began to study the book from the package. The cover had ornate Chinese characters with "Chao Manuscript" lightly written in English with pencil. He thought, It must have been sent by Mister Chao. Everything had been written in Chinese. Some sections had handwritten translated English notes. He began reading some of the translated passages. "Spells"? "Impose Will For A Short Time" (The Mental Suggestion spell from the rulebook)? He spent all morning and noon trying to understand the passage.

At 3 P.M. the physiotherapist Salazar arrived with a pair of crutches for Stark. Together they left the ward, passing by the nurses' station, some storage rooms and an empty pediatrics ward. While hobbling past Doctor Hagen's office - the hospital's Operations Director - he saw the man at his desk talking animatedly into his phone at his desk. There was a computer on his desk, a closet behind him, an aquarium tank on the wall.

Finally they reached the Physiotherapy ward.

Stark returned to his ward by 5. Soon it was dinner time. Yay, hospital food.

At 8 P.M. while family members were visiting the others Stark tried studying Chao's book some more. Beck's granddaughter came over with a plate of pie which Stark graciously accepted. Stark noticed that Nunez's only visitor, his daughter, was in tears trying to coax her father to respond to her to no avail.

Then, Nurse Cutler entered the room. She was there to take some blood from Stark. Stark (successfully rolling his INTx5 for Perception) noticed that Nunez began trembling, his eye wide with absolute fear. He allowed the head nurse to do her job and leave. Nunez ceased trembling after she left the room. 

Lights were turned off after visiting hours.

Stark heard a sound and woke up. According to the wall clock it was 11 P.M. In the shadows, he saw Nurse Cutler standing over the sleeping Beck. She produced a large, unusually archaic-looking needle from her apron pocket and appeared to be taking his blood. Stark thought nothing of it and returned to sleep.

Gary's Gift

Edition 5.6.1

Day Two

 

Cover for My Name Is Not A Number

17 June 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Books
 

David Leyman commissioned a cover recently for his new novella entitled My Name is Not a Number. I read it so I could do art direction for the cover myself and I thought this was his best work yet.

My Name is Not a Number.

My Name is Not a Number

And the cover turned out well too I think.

 

We Keep Going Back To Sungai Congkak

15 June 2014 | Hisham | | Family Pics
 

...probably because it's the picnic spot in the woods that's closest to us. Still we needed to drive over the hills to reach it.

It was Irfan's school holidays, so Atok and Opah came over for a visit. Sunday morning we went for a picnic.

Atok with his photography gear
Opah sets the breakfast table

Instead of more pictures of us dipping in the river or having nasi lemak, here follows photos of the surrounding environment.

 

Ruthermore's Second and Third Covers

11 June 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Books, Misc Sci-Fi
 

After illustrating the cover of David Leyman's first "Ruthermore Heidigens" science fiction novella, Ruthermore Heidigens and the Fifth Planet, here are two more cover artwork from two other stories in the series, Ruthermore Heidigens and the Voices and Ruthermore Heidigens and the Nights at the Round Table - the former of which I made over a year ago but forgot to post here since.

Ruthergens Heidimore and the Voices!

Ruthermore Heidigens and the Voices

Ruthergens Heidimore and the Nights at the Round Table!

Ruthermore Heidigens and the Nights at the Round Table

 

Warbirds RPG: East or West, Bombs are Best

09 June 2014 | Hisham | | GOKL Actual Play, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games
 

I played for the first time in GOKL's still new Warbirds RPG campaign yesterday.

We fly the friendly skies
 

Warbirds is a dieselpunk role-playing game where players are mercenary pilots who fly alternate-universe versions of circa-1940 combat fighters among the Caribbean Islands. But this version of the Caribbean Islands - including the parts of the Yucatan and Florida - were enveloped by a strange devastating storm in 1807. When the storm abated, the islands found themselves floating in mid-air over a sea of murky clouds. At night, the stars are different than the ones the survivors are used to on Earth. The world was called Azure.

After more than a century, the islands have formed new nations and new alliances. Using local exotic material known as floatstones, hovering ships were created as vehicles to travel between the islands. A mercenary group known as the Esteemed Guild of Combat Aviators was formed to fight to gain fortune among the cutthroat politics of the nations of Azure.

Player characters are from various peoples and nations of Azure who joined the Guild to be their combat pilots. The system uses only a d6 which makes it quick and cinematic. Character generation too was quite simple and I created a character swiftly from reading a few pages in the rulebook.

Wait! "Rookie" Only Has One 'E'?

I played a rookie pilot named John Piriki'ki, a Carib journalist from the floating island of Barbados who arrived on the island of West Grand with a bunch of other Rookies via a Guild Carrier commanded by Captain Martin. John had been recently assigned to the Grandstander Squadron by the Guild with mechanics. The arriving Rookies were greeted with pomp and circumstance by the daughter of West Grand Governor - who appeared to be a bit bloodthirsty against their enemy, the island of East Grand.

The squadron's publicist Esteban Munoz met John who then introduced him to the rest of the squadron: Sous Chef, Pyro, Deadline and squadron commander Tequila. John also showed them his owl tattoo on his right deltoid. The publicist has arranged for Grandstander Squadron to have a press conference in the city.

Local journalist Alan Ashland of Bradley Printing Works arrived at the airbase to ask for the Grandstanders' help.

He knew that the squadron would be called for a night reconnaissance mission over East Grand soon, and would like them to drop leaflets there calling for the enemy to lay down their arms because both islands had been one nation once and a lot of families were separated by the war. Ashland and his allies in the city wished for a bloodless end of the war. A war between East and West Grand would be a bloodbath for East Grand as they had minimal armed forces and combat equipment.

However the West Grand Governor wanted East Grand to be utterly defeated in war. So this would have to be an illicit mission.

Not only did the Grandstanders agree, Deadline and John offered some ideas to the leaflet (by rolling on their Craft: Journalism skill).

I fly a canard-winged plane!
 

Interior Art for Reign of the Descended

06 June 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 
In the previous blog entry I posted the cover art I made for Heroic Journey Publishing's Mecha RPG: Reign of the Descended!

Currently available on DriveThruRPGReign of the Descended is a setting book for Chris Perrin's Mecha role-playing game. Long story short, it's a pastiche of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA and/or Robotech: Invid Invasion. Now here are interior art I made for the book.

ARX-14X multi-use armor, the transformable bike variant can be seen on cover
Guardian transformable fighter mecha
The Powell mecha as seen on cover
The Strongarm mecha
The Descended's Kichou mecha
The Descended's varied Shirei mecha as seen on cover
The Decended's headquarters Evoculous Hom

Check out Reign of the Descended on DriveThruRPG. Create more stories as you play to liberate the Earth from the scourge of the Descended.

 

Cover for Mecha RPG: Reign of the Descended

03 June 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

Heroic Journey Publishing's Mecha RPG: Reign of the Descended has been released on DriveThruRPG.

It's a setting book for Chris Perrin's Mecha role-playing game where players live in an apocalyptic aftermath of an alien invasion. The human resistance fighters are underpowered and badly armed, but with the power armour in their possession, the player characters can plan to fight the alien invaders and kick them off the Earth once and for all.

I drew its cover, which looks like this:

Even the aliens have powered armour!

Here is a glimpse of the cover process artwork:

I had to convince them that the sound effects will not be in the final artwork.
 

Check out the Reign of the Descended setting at DriveThruRPG!

 

Rafe's 29 Month Birthday

29 May 2014 | sila | | Family Pics
 

Adik is twenty-nine months old!

Sitting in the grass, enjoying the sunshine

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

70 Months

22 May 2014 | sila | | Family Pics
 

And Yaya is now 70 months old! Two more months before the big S-I-X!

Demure young lady

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

EOTE: The Prince In Carbonite

19 May 2014 | Hisham | | GOKL Actual Play, Modesty Blazing, RPG Actual Play, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Modesty Blazing

Episode 03 - The Prince In Carbonite 

5 white coins!

Destiny Pool seems pretty good for the players.

Previously, on Star Wars: Modesty Blazing... 

After disposing of the twisted IG-series assassin droid that took over the Imperial Biomedical Base on the icy world of Khov and freeing the captured prisoners at Smallberries Skystation on Hypori, the Modesty Blaze returned to the deserted outpost with a contractor to quickly salvage and sell off what they can. The hired gun Tray'Essek the Trandoshan opted to remain at Smallberries Station to ensure the prisoners' release properly.

The Tinhub Brothers Salvage Corporation employees first helped the droid 41-VEX, Zeltron explorer Darter Kel and Trianii bounty hunter Qilian Ryn modify the Blaze by increasing her manoeuvrability and replacing her dorsal cannon with one of two anti-aircraft quadcannons that was protecting the base.

Occassionally, tremors shook the walls and floor of the bay as they worked.

The crew allowed the Tinhub Brothers team to take apart one Lambda-class shuttle and one All-Terrain Armoured Transport for themselves, from which a net worth of 60,000 credits belonged to the Blaze crew. Stronger tremors rattled the structure sending dust and gravel falling and billowing from the ceiling.

Meanwhile, 41-VEX sauntered off to the droid reconstruction module. It had enough power and parts for one more use. VEX entered the resleeving pod. Automated waldoes took him apart and removed his droid brain. Then, a new body was assembled as requested by VEX. Once completed, the droid brain was plugged in. His eyes lit up. 41-VEX decided on a new name: VAX-11/750.

He returned to the bay just in time to see the Tinhub Brothers' Gozanti cruiser leave into the blue skies above, leaving the YT-1300 freighter Modesty Blaze all by herself. An even stronger quake cracked the walls and sent rocks and dust fall from the reinforced ceiling, Everyone was gathered beneath her deciding on what to do next. The consensus was, "We've got to get out of here now."

VAX-11/750 to be precise

A new body. New set of innate skills. What else has been hardwritten into his circuits by the fabricator, eh? 

Withdrawal From Khov 

The wall speakers crackled to life and a voice boomed throughout the hangar bay, "Khov base, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Tempestuous on an unscheduled inspection, please reply." There was no time to improvise. The voice continued, "You know how crucial secrecy is to your base, Khov. Please reply or we have been ordered to enact Base Delta Zero in 15 minutes."

Yes, it was time to get out of there.

 

Rafe's 28 Month Birthday

01 May 2014 | sila | | Family Pics
 

28 months old!

Yaya is holding my eaw!

Caveat: this entry (for April) was written in June. Thank goodness for backdated entries! Also, we kind of forgot to take pictures of the boy to document his day any of those days in April. So this month's entry will be a roundup of my favorite pictures taken in the last month.

* Mouse over the pictures for captions

 

25 Years Running Star Wars RPG

30 April 2014 | Hisham | | Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 
Yesterday Man / Droid-like Typing Detected

It was April 1989 when I received West End Game's Star Wars The Roleplaying Game and the Star Wars Sourcebook, two years after it was officially released.

I have been running and playing various systems of the game for twenty-five years to the month. I can't remember the exact date though. It has been a great quarter century of making friends and having a great fun with them, sitting together, making up our own Star Wars stories and laughing our asses off at the gaming table (or floor).

Campaigns I've run or played in the past and present:

Here's to another 25 more years.

Note: Also posted on As Seen On Tabletop Tumblr

All the rulebooks, almost

Everything but Wizards of the Coast's Original Core Rulebook

My security blanket

Some of the West End Games books I've bought over the years. Wish I had Platt's Starport Guide and Pirates and Privateers.

 

Terror of Yolanda Comic Page Process

27 April 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Comics
 

Terror of Yolanda is a 10-page comic written by Angelia Ong for the Haiyan Benefit Anthology comic, which I pencilled and inked.

Here is a look at the process of getting page 7 together.

First I set the page size by pixel, lay the page out on GIMP from Angelia's script, and then pencil it with MyPaint. 

I digitally ink it on another layer with MyPaint and save the the final inks as a high resolution lossless format to be sent to the colourist.

Then Ryan Rhodes coloured it and Chris Johnson lettered it.

Voila. Page 7!

Ryan was the colourist of pages 6-10. Pages 1-5 was coloured by Lancelot Catan. The book is in the last stages of being put together by Phil Woodward to be released for the public soon. Watch for more posts on the Haiyan Benefit Anthology soon.

 

Invulnerable Super Hero RPG: Vigilante Edition

24 April 2014 | Hisham | | Artwork, Role Playing Games
 

The Invulnerable Super Hero RPG: Vigilante Edtion game designed by Joshua Kubli has been released on DriveThruRPG. Head on down there to purchase it for some supers action in your own super powered setting or use the native setting that allows you to create supernatural heroes, science heroes, mutant heroes, robot heroes, alien heroes and anything else you can think of! Create legacy heroes to add depth to your setting!

Here is a glimpse of the artwork I made for the game.

Buy the book at DriveThruRPG!