D is for Djinn!

3 members of that ancient race who walk beside men in unseen, other realms...  Occasionally they pass through doors between worlds, dabbling briefly in the affairs of mortals before returning to the plain of air. 

 

                                  The classic Trampier illustration from the original Monster Manual.

                                        The first is a Ral Partha miniature I think from the 90s....

I painted him as close as I can get to the picture of Othere, the Djinn of Distinction from the Lost Worlds Combat Book Series.

A Grenadier Djinn from their official D&D line from the very late 70s/ early 80s.

Another Ral Partha Djinn...I had the idea that I could use these fellows in a number of different settings:  D&D, Pulp, (Little Cairo), and they might even fit into my ancient Egyptians vs Hittite.

We'll see where they first show up on the Big Board!

Old School Ral Partha D&D Dungeon Party #4

Yet another party of bold adventurers arrives to test thier wits and wills against the horrifying denizens of the Caves of Chaos!  One might have thought that they would have learned something from the grisly fates of the three parties that went before them but alas, nay.  "Let's find the biggest, most powerful monsters we can and attack 'em!  If we kill 'em, we'll get a ton of treasure and experience points!"  The caves of Chaos will likely hold their bones.

A fighter/magic user goes for his sword at the sword of unseen feet stealthily approaching...

This figure was obviously selected as the inspiration for the 'Fighter Mage with magic sword" character from Nova games old Lost Worlds fighting fantasy game books. a series of which I am a fan.  The details of the man's face and equipment match the character on the cover of the book exactly, and I painted him to match for Lost Worlds games.

A wizard converses with the skull of an old friend,  (Perhaps his father's court jester or Shaman?) on which path might now be the best to take. 

This figure was an early Tom Meier sculpt, I beleive, from the look of him I'd guess Tom completed him around the time he was working on the Condottieri series, as he has a wee something of a renaissance look about him.  Dr. Faust, I presume?  He was marketed as "Necromancer".

Back, ye undead!  Back in yer tombs where ye belong!  A cleric hurls his holy power at the dark denizens of the caverns...

A swashbuckling, albeit rather puzzled looking? female elf thief or fighter/thief, perhaps wondering how she got here.  I think this figure was actually part of the very antique Royal Armies of the Hyborian Age line, and from the rather nautical looking boots and sword  gather this mini may have been intended to represent Valeria.  In common with a lot of figures from that line, she has a bit of an awkward look to her...the Ral Partha sculptors were still very young and had not yet hit their stride but I still like her.

This party must be relying more on brains than brawn to get through the caverns as they have brought few fighters but plenty of thieves and spellcaasters.  This female halfling thief is not actually a Ral Partha product but a Grenadier one.  She was sculted by Julie Guthrie, who worked for both companies, though, and fits in nicely.

"Valeria" and Fred the Dwarf.  Grr!  saith Fred.  Goblins?  Let me at 'em!
 

The spellcasters convene to come up with a plan.  "This way!"  "No, that way!"  "Hmm...What say ye, Yorick?"

Ack!  Goblin attack!  Will our heroes survive?

Lost Worlds Characters pt. 2: Fighter & Unicorn

It's been a pretty slow month for hobby stuff, unfortunately.  Twelve hour days don't leave much time off for painting little people and monsters.  Over the last day or two, however, I've had some very slow and quiet hours in the guard shack to get these additions to my Lost Worlds collection painted.  The rainy days have kept Colonels and Sergeants Major indoors and out of everybody's hair.  Keep it coming. Nature!

Here's the first of the new additions, the old, super-imaginatively titled "Man in chain-mail with sword and shield."  The subject of the very first Lost Worlds book, he is pretty under-powered compared with later characters.  He'll probably end up representing a retainer for more powerful characters in most of my games.

As with all my Lost Worlds minis, I tried to paint him to match the book as closely as possible.  Half the fun of this game is having the figure to go with the book.  It's nice how closely Nova games synched the book art to the Ral Partha miniatures.

This particular figure was originally released as a mounted/dismounted combination.  The only variance between the mini and the depiction on the book cover is that the mini is wearing small spurs.  You can make out the straps around his ankles if you look close.  On the book, however, the straps are shown as a fold or bunching of his mail.  Not sure if that was a mistake by Nova or intentional. I've painted him as shown on the book.

Brave, decent looking fellow,  He'll probably get killed a lot, sadly.  Oh, well.

A few months ago, I got the Lost Worlds adventure sets on ebay.  For the second time, actually.  Last time I bought them, the guy ripped me off and never sent them.  Mrs. Mouse confirms, however, that this time, the transaction was for real, and my sets are waiting for me back in Bag End.  Its in the

Report: My Expedition to the Lost Worlds

 So.  This past weekend I climbed into my time machine and traveled to my childhood buddy John's house for a weekend of old-school gaming.  I brought Fourth Reich and Full Metal Planete, a lovely old game, and my Lost Worlds books and minis, which I was eager to try out.  John had purchased Black Morn Manor just for the occasion and we were looking forward to giving that a spin as well, but the only game we ended up playing was Lost Worlds, 'cause we had just that much fun with it.  Even John's wife Maggie was charmed by the concept of the characterful little books with their matching minis and tried a couple of games.

 LW is a very fast and very simple game, but we were impressed by the amount of work which must have gone into the system to make it function as smoothly and in as much detail as it does.  The game books themselves are strictly bare-bones, and provide you with NO background, fluff, or scenarios.  I can see that after a short time, simply matching one character against another would get pretty monotonous,  but I can also see a good deal of potential in it for creating your own fun little scenarios and adventures, especially when you just don't have the time or space for something like an Oldhammer game.

 I had books and minis for 6 characters:  The Skeleton, Wraith, Dwarf, Barbarian, Forest Troll and Gargoyle.  First in the arena were the Dwarf and Skeleton, and in the ensuing series of combats, the Dwarf soon emerged as a top contender.  He quickly reduced the skeleton to kindling  in three back-to-back fights, then took down the wraith and the barbarian in that order, and without  much more trouble.

Next we tried pitting the Wraith and Gargoyle against each other.  I had assumed that the Wraith would be pretty tough...y'know...Nazgul and that...but he actually folded up very quickly under the Gargoyle's attacks.  Weenie. 

We then decided to give the Gargoyle a worthy adversary and put him up against the Dwarf, our champion up to that point.  In the first fight, the Gargoyle broke the Dwarf's axe coming out of the gate, leaving the stout little chap with a huge negative damage modifier and no way to inflict a significant wound on his enemy.  After a few rounds of stubborn but pointless resistance, the Dwarf wisely decided to head for the hills at a brisk jog, leaving the Gargoyle in possession of the field.

After stopping for an hour or so in a nearby grove to replace his broken axe-handle, our Dwarf returned to try again.  A tough and lengthy contest ensued in which the Gargoyle soon proved his worth.  I had assumed that he would be designed as a fairly weak hand-to-hand opponent, with  his main asset being his air-mobility.  In fact, the gargoyle was tough, with a lot of hit points, good damage modifiers and a collection of nasty special flying attacks.  After a hard fight, the Dwarf, hitherto undefeated, finally succumbed.

After breakfast on Sunday morning, we managed to squeeze in a few more games before I had to go.  We decided to try Skeleton vs. Wraith, and these two managed to kill each other with a single blow each in the very first round of close combat, confirming our suspicion that they were both strictly featherweights.

For the very last game, we brought out the Forest Troll, and pitted him against a team of two:  The Dwarf and the Barbarian. It was the best game yet.  The Troll has a LOT of advantages, including many, many hit points, and I assumed he would stomp my two companions pretty quickly and thoroughly, but the devious adventurers quickly learned that if the Barbarian struck high while the Dwarf struck low on each round, the Troll was only able to parry one of the two attacks, leaving himself open to the other.  Although it didn't wok perfectly every time, and the Troll did manage to deliver one shrewd buffet to the Barbarian's head, the fight was clearly moving in the direction of the Troll's defeat.  By getting in an arm wound from the barbarian on one round, and a leg wound from the Dwarf the next, it seemed clear that the bearded duo would eventually wear the Troll down through the use of their cunning Wolf-Pack tactics.

Then came the turning point.  The Barbarian crowned the superb fight he had been putting up so far by delivering a tremendous downward cut onto the Troll's bony head, shearing away 11 of the monster's remaining hit-points and dazing him.  It was a coup to make his tribesmen back home stand up and cheer, but it had the unfortunate additional effect of driving the Troll into a berserk rage.  The triggering of the Troll's RAGE feature had the potential to be a real game-changer.  The Troll flung his club at the barbarian, a desperate gambit which at least temporarily deprived the troll of his primary death delivery system, but the Troll was down to his last hit point and the risk was well run.  The flying tree-trunk struck the barbarian in the head, dropping him below zero hit points, knocking him out cold and putting him out of the fight.  Left to carry on alone, the Dwarf valiantly refused to leave his fallen comrade.  Knowing it was all or nothing now, he hurled himself at the Troll in a series of all-out attacks.  The Troll kept jumping back, using his regenerate ability to recoup two of his lost body points each turn.  When he'd brought himself back to five hit points, he felt sufficiently prepared to rejoin the fight.  At precisely the same moment, the two combatants stepped forward and met each other toe-to-toe.  Simultaneously each struck out and brought a magnificent blow down about the head and shoulders of the other.  The stroke of the Dwarf's bright steel axe clove the Troll's bony pate in two, taking him below -5 hit points and killing him outright.  At the same moment, the Troll's great tree-trunk club rang off the Dwarf's helm, bringing him below zero, but not below -5 body points, so that he was stretched senseless on the ground.   The Troll was dead, but the Dwarf and Barbarian would eventually come to, collect their loot and drag themselves painfully off to the local bar to soothe their wounds with beer and and the attentions of buxom tavern girls.

Ah.  A game well played and enjoyed.

At last it was time to pack up my toys and my wife and make the tiresome journey back to the tiresome present.  But I'm certain that this won't have been our last expedition to the Lost Worlds!

Lost Worlds Characters Pt. 1: Skeleton, Forest Troll and Gargoyle

 So my latest retro-gaming obsession, (like I need another one, right?) are these little Lost Worlds combat books that were published some thirty years ago by NOVA games, and which always looked interesting to me.  The fact that each one of the Lost Worlds character booklets was modeled after a specific Ral Partha miniature from RP's mid-eighties glory days whet my appetite even further.  Best of all, they're dirt cheap.  I got all of mine for $4 or $5 each, and about 90% of the minis are still available from Iron Wind Metals.  The concept looks very simple and entertaining. Good for whiling away an evening when friends can't stay long enough for a full blown game of Warhammerocalypse. 

Curiously, the miniatures don't matter one bit to the game unless you get one of the deluxe boxed adventure sets, both of which I got recently outrageously cheap on that glorious triumph of the free market system we know as ebay.  Woo hoo!  Got to love those auctions that end at odd hours.  The adventure sets each contain a 3-d tactical map of a dungeon setting in which your characters can maneuver on each other as they try to get hold of various ancient and powerful magical artifacts.  Eagerly anticipating their arrival in the mail.

Going to spend most of next weekend at my childhood friend and fellow geek John's house and am looking forward to trying a few games with these three fellows, as well as the Barbarian, Wraith and Dwarf.  (Which I obtained a long time ago but which I've yet to paint up.)

A quick glance through the books hints that each character has a set of strengths and weaknesses unique to himself, and the book points out that not all characters are created equal. Some are much stronger than others, and will probably have to be teamed up on by a gang of weaker characters.  The Forest Troll, here, for example, has almost three times the hit points of your average human character and can take on 2 opponents at once, something few creatures can apparently do.  The skeleton is weak, but can regenerate damage by picking up the bones you knock off of him and fitting them back into his frame.  The gargoyle is also considerably tougher than the average human character, and, obviously, has the advantage of a pair o' wings.

So...warming up the time machine, and we'll see how my weekend expedition to the Lost World of goofy 80's nerd-gaming goes.  With any luck, I shan't return.