Vrisk

Otherworldly Creatures of Issyka

Christopher Mennell aka The Secret DM, commissioned me to create a host of otherworldly creatures for his fantasy setting of Issyka. It had been a while since I drew fantasy creatures. So I thought it would be a great for me to flex that cluster of creative muscle. Long after the ancient Shapers have gone extinct, their bio-factory are still creating new creatures that continue to roam the wilds of Issyka. Click on the images to expand them: An adult zegak-zoti grow anywhere from three to thirty feet tall. This type of creature has an armoured hide which could turn the best arrows. The largest of these beasts could be made into a mobile fortress if they could be tamed. However, the problem many find is that zegak-zotis adore the taste of human flesh. Sysakuunds are aquatic hunters that can grow up to fifty feet in length. They hunt prey […]

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Dungeon Master and Soran Itsuka

DnD: Abduction at the Ancient Ruins

Finally after almost 30 years of gamemastering roleplaying games, I finally got to run Dungeons and Dragons. Setting background: 130 years in the past, a fleet of jongs, perahus and lancang led by a Laksamana of the Sultanate of Melaka left their port for the Kingdom of China. As they approached the island of Temasik, a mist of green and purple descended upon them. They sailed in the mist for three days without the sun or blue sky. After the mist vanished, they found themselves in unknown waters. At night, the stars were different and the moon had a different face, and shone blue. The flotilla sent scouts north, south, east and west. The scouts discovered an archipelago to the east and led the fleet to an island that took them two days to sail around. The Laksamana decided on building an encampment at a river delta protected by a […]

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I don't have the DMG though

Some Dungeons and Some Dragons

I spent most of Saturdays this past two semesters teaching extra English classes. This semester after I was paid, I ordered the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual from Book Depository. I was told by many that the fifth edition rules handles very well and figured it was time for me to purchase D&D books. Book Depository has free shipping and up to 25% discount on the books! It would cost more for me to grab copies from Kinokuniya. I have not played D&D since AD&D second edition back in the late 80s. The covers are amazing. I love aboleths. I think it was the first major critter I fought back in the day as a Half-Elven Ranger. A beholder is right up there on the cover. I sometimes refer to this as the death salad. I do not believe this monster is a vegetarian though. I believe […]

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A 2-player game

BBF: The Day The World Burned

The second RPG session I ran during the Geomatics Carnival 2018 at UiTM Arau was DwD Studios’ BareBones Fantasy. This session had even less prep time than the Star Wars session I ran earlier in the day. However, it turned out to be one of the most hilarious sessions I have ever had he pleasure of gamemastering in recent years. BareBones Fantasy The Day the World Burned The day began like another day for the two adventurers the elven thief Mus and human warrior Kazuma (both at Rank 1) and their hireling Aqua, an archer, who were travelling through the wilderness on horses. Upon Kazuma’s shoulder was his faithful hawk. The Blood in the Standing Stones The light woodlands ended and a wall of dark twisted trees and dense thickets blocked their path. They were considering what to do when they heard a scream from beyond the wall growing before […]

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Dice Ibegon

EOTE: Rescue on Crait

The first RPG session I ran during the Geomatics Carnival 2018 at UiTM Arau was Fantasy Flight Games’ Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion. The players, who were UiTM students, used the Legends of the Galaxy pregenerated character sheets I used in class previously. Edge of the Empire Rescue on Crait The YT-2000 light freighter Sitichepa (I’m… sure this is an in-joke between the players) dropped out of hyperspace off the Crait system. Aboard the ship are a group of rebel operatives in search of fellow rebels whose ship disappeared near Crait: the star-pilot who was born and raised on space freighters and barges Kreepo, the sharp Twi’lek engineer Byt, the droid assassin FLAM-O who was bristling with weapons and Malea the Force sensitive warrior who had a lightsabre on her belt. Kreepo brought their ship closer to the desolate planet so Byt could scan its surface for signals. The Twi’lek […]

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Gaming at the Geomatics Carnival 2018

Today, the Centre for International Languages was officially invited by Zainee to UiTM Arau nearby for their Geomatics Carnival 2018 exhibition. There was a hobbies exhibition section where I set up shop with tabletop RPGs with my colleague Bazli. I would talk to visitors about using RPGs as a language learning tool. Also, to run games if and when I can. Sharnizan of Serious Games UUM was also present to introduce and sell his product the Ace of Maths game to UiTM students. Though at this point he was explaining the card game to Bazli. There was no dearth of visitors to our tables when the exhibition started. The exhibition organisers even provided Bazli and I with a packed lunch. My usual suspects line up was arrayed for display at their table, eliciting enquiries once in a while. I ran two game sessions for visitors. I ran the Edge of […]

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Ready player one

EOTE Tabletop Day Session: The Pilot and the Spy

Interlude 1 The Pilot and the Spy Last night before the end of International Tabletop Day, Irfan returned to his role as Hondo Pash the Smuggler Pilot in Star Wars Edge of the Empire role-playing game. We began with an obligatory Star Wars crawl: Movin’ It had been several years since the fateful Battle of Shadda-Bi-Boran. While his family were safely sequestered away on an Alliance safeworld, Hondo Pash had been working as an Alliance operative travelling the galaxy taking on one piloting mission after another. The Corellian Engineering Corp G9 Rigger-class modified freighter known as the Junk Bucket dropped out of lightspeed off the Igmalar system. The planet Igmalar was a humid, fog-covered swamp planet deep in the Enteague Sector in a minor star cluster slightly above the galactic plane. Nestled in the Outer Rim Territories, the Enteague Sector was under the absolute grip of the Empire because of […]

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FTK4

SWD6: A Hot Day in Mos Espa

I brought West End Games’ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 2nd edition Revised and Expanded with me to class on Monday. There was time for me to run an hour of Star Wars RPG for my students, so I mustered together all the ones who would speak and ones who would take notes on behalf of their characters, which meant two students per player characters. The students used the pregenerated characters I made for last semester‘s gaming session in class but they named their own characters themselves. Star Wars D6 A Hot Day in Mos Espa Dramatis Personae (Pregens): Creed Kenobi – Failed Jedi Dini – Kid, Creed’s apprentice The Mighty Jedibo – Bounty hunter Wakanda – Outlaw Uvuevuevuenoenoonosac a.k.a. “Osas” – Rodian saboteur Two suns shine down upon the planet Tatooine. A Rebel team landed their modified YT-1300 freighter at a landing bay in the city of Mos Espa […]

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Mini Six: Whiteout, or an RPG Workshop at SILK 2018

This weekend I was honoured to be able to run a tabletop RPG workshop during the 2018 Symposium for International Languages and Knowledge which was held at Walailak University at Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Last year, SILK 2017 was held here in Perlis and was featured on the blog as well. Here are some photos of the event with an actual play report of the game that I ran for the Thai students. The little abstract for the workshop which I submitted a couple of months earlier appeared in the programme book for the symposium. Parallel talk session were underway when I went to scout the room where I was due to run the workshop. I quickly set up the table and then did some last minute game prep for the coming participants. Besides showing off the diversity of RPG systems, these book covers displayed side-by-side on the table can […]

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Spahn's book

New RPG Books

Even with a proper job, I still find it difficult to order RPG books (or any type of books online) because of other obligations (i.e. bills to pay). So I thought I should look to alternatives for them. I had complementary copies of book in pdf form so why not we print some of them so we had dead tree versions to hold, touch and read in meatspace. Mini Six I have had Mini Six printed and bound in a comb binding format for many years. I thought it would great to have one perfect bound which would make it look nicer. On cardstock, the back cover of the book looks pretty even without fancy illustrations. Don’t look now, but there is a hell hound in the interior pages. White Star I also printed out White Star by James Spahn. The cover looks epic. The guy on the cover reminded […]

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What is this arpeegee shenanigans?

Mini Six: The Vanishing at Kuala Perlis

Plans are underway at work to create a tabletop RPG actual play video web series to be posted online. Initiated and managed by Bazli, it would be our push to promote role-playing games (RPGs) as language learning tools that would not only be holistic and comprehensive, but fun and immersive when done right. My task is to run the session as a gamemaster (GM) and Bazli will cut the video into encounter-sized bits to be uploaded. To begin with I ran the participants an impromptu session of Mini Six using the pregenerated templates I created for the Doom Agents class. Like the students before them, the participants took the roles of international agents sent on a mission to investigate extraordinary occurrences. Mission Report (in brief) Six agents were sent to Kuala Perlis to look into a phantom island that appears after sunset between the Kurong Tengar beach and Langkawi. A fishing […]

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Sick Hospital Breakout

Patreon: Doomed Surgical Team

Perfect for any horror tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), these paper miniatures of a doomed surgical team with a swarm of patients who are clearly hostile and infected with… something. Those stains on their medical smocks are perhaps blood, or infected vomit, or perhaps paint – because of a catastrophic hospital painting incident. Yeah, run that session and let me know how it turns out. Download the paper miniatures from Patreon for free!

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scoundrels vs stormies

Bored at Work But Not Really

Between semesters, I need not head to classes to teach. I do have a lot of work at the office though such as grading papers, planning for the next semester, employee assessment forms, workshops to attend and things such as the previous day’s brochure to create. So, alone in my room sometimes I just set my RPG gear and paperminis on my table just for kicks. Classes will start soon, so I will not have the opportunity for this again in a couple of months hence. Click on the Paper Miniatures category on the blog to see all the available Star Wars paperminis.

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Cover

FAE Printed and Bound

I downloaded a copy of FATE Accelerated Edition even before I moved up here. But I never got it printed out until today. I had sent it for printing the previous evening and the print shop called me up today as we were getting the car’s tyre replaced. So we picked it up. It did not cost a lot of Republic credits even with perfect binding at A5 sized pages. The output looks and feels amazing. The Needless to say, I might print more stuff I downloaded from DriveThruRPG / RPGNow at the print shop. All I need now is some FATE dice.

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