Boxes for Minis

So when I was speaking about packing away my Stargrave minis, here, I hadn't thought about where or how I was going to pack them away. Whilst I have several carrying cases for minis, I have way too many minis and not enough carrying cases, so a lot of minis end up being put away into small plastic storage boxes wrapped in paper towel. Whilst these are practical, they are not ideal and I had always been on the lookout for an alternative for my minis, even if this would only be for temporary storage whilst they are being transported from home to game.

I found a few old miniature boxes that Games Workshop produced and thought these looked ideal as they fold out flat and are constructed by tucking in various flaps. If I was to finish it with a bit of cheap foam in the base and lid it should stop movement and damage to the minis inside.

I unfolded these and traced around the box onto some cereal box card and scored along the appropriate lines with a blunt knife, using the original box a a template to figure out which way to fold the flaps. I did stick the long side flaps down before folding up my new box as this would help the tab catch better, and give the box a bit of rigidity.

I followed up on this by deciding to buy a large sheet of construction card, the day-glow green was on offer, and the foam I used was some foam I found from an old computer hard drive I had bought many years ago.

Although the construction card is nice, I have a never ending supply of cereal boxes so I can have several of these for random minis when travelling to a game. As you can see, the box comfortably holds 5 to 6 minis on bases. I don't think a large creature would fit, or a base much larger than 30 or 32mm, but for the most of what I have these will do the trick.

J

Free RPG Day 2025

You might remember last years post on Free RPG Day. This year Free RPG Day was on 21st June 2025, and you can find out more about Free RPG Day here.

Although last years wasn't the event I had been working towards, I was glad that I organised something and glad that I got some games running for Free RPG Day. This year once again I asked my local gaming store, OnTableTop, if they were going to organise and host games for Free RPG Day. I did do this earlier in the year once Free RPG Day 2025 was officially announced... and the lack of response and general interest from the store was sadly present once again; just like last year. 

I had steeled myself for this particular scenario and so as soon as Free RPG Day 2025 was officially announced, I began organising things in the background in order to make this year as good a year as I could; they only thing I was leaving to nearer the time was the actual venue. Obviously being just an over-enthusiastic gamer, I couldn't order the swag for Free RPG Day, but at least I could organise and run some games.

Having done my background work I had quite a few GMs and quite a variety of games lined up.

The plan this year was to run two sessions with three games each session.

• Session 1 (Morning)
• Mutants and Masterminds (3e)
• Dragonbane
• Pendragon

• Session 2 (Afternoon)
• Dungeons and Dragons (5e)
• Monty Python RPG
• Labyrinth Lord

That plan didn't work, essentially due to lack of numbers – it is funny that if everyone who liked and commented on social media attended I would probably have had to turn people away, and as it turned out we had only a handful of those numbers overall. All was not lost however, as we did get a good number of games ran this year.

The final list of games played was:

• Pendragon
• Mutants and Masterminds (3e)
• Dungeons and Dragons (5e)
• Monty Python RPG

Pendragon

This was an adventure from the starter set and thanks to Paul for running this game. I had been eager to play Pendragon for some time and so was really happy Paul decided to run this. I enjoyed this Pendragon one-shot (which was just the first part of the starter set), and would definitely like to play more.

Mutants and Masterminds (3e)

This was a home-brew adventure and thanks to Marshall for running this game. I was (am) not a great superhero fan, and whilst I might watch a movie, or read a comic in this genre, it doesn't do much for me. That being said, I had never played Mutants and Masterminds and so was eager to give it a go. What can I say, I was really impressed with the system, and with the scenario Marshall had concocted for us. This was very enjoyable and I can definitely see myself playing more one-shots of Mutants and Masterminds.

Dungeons and Dragons (5e)

This was a home-brew adventure and thanks to Matthew for running this game. I did not play this (I was playing Mutants and Masterminds at the time), but it was D&D and is something I am familiar with, so there you go. Everyone who did play in the game seemed to enjoy it.

Monty Python RPG

Or to give it its proper title Monty Python's Cocurricular Historical Reenactment Programme and thanks to Gerry for running this game. I was curious about this game and I will admit I was not sure whether I would like it or not. I cannot even tell you if the scenario was from the game or a home-brew by Gerry, but whatever it was it was quite enjoyable and I feel it was a fitting game to end the day on.

Everyone who turned up had a great time and I think that this was one of my most enjoyable Free RPG Days yet.

When I was planning things the background, I knew I wanted to give something as a thank you to those GMs who would turn up to run a game, so I organised some 2025 GM badges. The GMs were over the moon when I handed these out, proudly wearing the badge for the day. I will definitely do something similar next year.

Also, not to miss out on swag, Lance from Fox and Hyde left in some of his zines during the day. I grabbed these two, a D&D character portfolio, and a game about woodland creatures. Thanks to Lance for coming down and dropping stuff off. You should really check his stuff out.

I was able to pack up and go home knowing we all had a great day and I an looking forward to Free RPG Day 2026!

J

Stargrave - Part 3

You may remember I wrote about Stargrave here. This was back towards the end of the pandemic, and after those initial few games as we were starting on our journey into Stargrave everything fizzled out due to various real-life reasons amongst the group. I never got to talk about the minis I had purchased back then or what my plans for as the games rolled on.

I have always liked Stargrave (and it's fantasy cousin, Frostgrave) and was itching to try and get more Stargrave on the table, this was especially so after playing Deep Space, which got my sci-fi juices going again. I found myself in a conversation with a fellow CGGG member who also expressed an interest in playing Stargrave and was also itching to get a mini campaign underway. So I got out my Stargrave stuff and was determined to finish not only my crew, but put together enough minis that I could field a second crew to ensure I could at least play a game with someone.

I stated to the group that as soon as I had two crews built I would organise some Stargrave. Needless to say there has been no Stargrave because as soon as I had the minis assembled and was in the process of painting them, real-life issues popped up again (this time directly affecting my family) and I was once more forced to put things away. I honestly believe I am cursed and will never get a game of Stargrave!! Anyhow, without wallowing in self pity or prophetising of things that may be, I will show you what I have purchased and where I am at with my Stargrave gaming. 

As mentioned previously, whilst I had ordered some official minis, I had a clear concept in mind for my crew (Ace Trucking Co) so went on the hunt for minis that I thought might suit. I ended up buying four different types model from eM4 Miniatures, em4miniatures.com

Spacelords

I picked these as they filled in some of the main 'characters' in my crew.

Future Skirmish

I picked these as they filled out the most of the rest of my crews 'characters' and I thought they fitted in with the future/sci-fi aesthetic that Stargrave has - very much boiler suits and guns.

Both the Spacelords and Future Skirmish minis would fill out the bulk of my crew, as these minis were hand picked to fit with my crew concept.

Gangers and Mechs

The Gangers (both the male and female version) as well as the official Stargrave models would fill in any gaps I might have in my crew, as well as fit out the bulk of the second crew so I could at least get a game. One of my crew was a robot, and that what the Mech minis were for.

Here is my crew, ACE Trucking Co.

As you can seen I had started painting these but things got in the way and I had to pack stuff away. I will get these back out and finish them, I am just not sure when.

I also mentioned about putting together some tokens for Stargrave. I have a copy of those original tokens that you can download here. These can be printed out, stuck onto thick card, and cut out for use in your own Stargrave games. If I get around to it I might revisit these in the future.

J

Gaming Swag 2025 - Surprises, Signed Copies and Purchases

I saved up all the information below and put into this one blog post, as I didn't think individually they were worthy of their own dedicated posts.

I had a lovely surprise over the Xmas period as I got gaming stuff as a gift, and although I may have mentioned once or twice about the lack of items to help in my gaming, I definitely did not have in my purview that I would get any items as presents.

So it was a real shock to me when I opened my presents and discovered I got pair of dice trays and a (faux) leather GM screen. What can I say, my family are awesome.

So far the dice trays have been used at every game since Xmas, although the GM screen has only been used once or twice, since I really only need it when I am playing a game I have to keep information hidden from the players.

I backed a Kickstarter some time in 2024 for a new Publishing House, Stars and Sabres, where their first book An Anthology of Shadows, Stars and Sabres was part of the rewards. I totally forgot that they would be sending this book out out if the Kickstarter funded, so another surprise early in the New Year when a package arrived for me. The package not only contained the book, but also a Thank You card, a Post Card with the same cover as the book, and some Stickers.

James Wallis, indie game designer, board game enthusiast, and all round nice chap was informed recently by his distributor that they found a couple of pallets of his role playing game Alas Vegas and James wanted to know if anyone out there in internet-land would like a signed copy. I jumped at the chance and am now the proud owner of Alas Vegas, signed by the author himself. I haven't got around to reading this yet, but it is on my list this is a role playing game where you begin the game with amnesia and over the course of the game you regain your memories, your pasts, connections, skills and secrets as the game progresses.

The fact that Alas Vegas deals with characters with amnesia reminded me of something I came across a few years back. I have an idea for an adaption of a really great fan-made Star Wars scenario, where you start out as characters with amnesia, but I wanted a different sci-fi system than Star Wars. It's not that I don't like Star Wars or any of the Star Wars role playing games, I have both played and own the West End Games Star Wars rpg, and own the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars rpg, I just wanted to do something sci-fi without it being Star Wars bound. When I finally get around to running this I'll make to post about it and link back to here.

On discussing this with some fellow gamers Scum and Villainy by Evil Hat Productions was mentioned. Taking a search online I found a local UK retailer who had a copy of the book in store, but to get free shipping I had to up my basket total – so a quick look in their sale and reduced to clear items I managed to get the following gaming stuff and make my free shipping total.

• Dragonbane
• Scum and Villainy
• The Witcher: A Tome of Chaos sourcebook
• Two card decks for Root: The Roleplaying Game
• Maze of Malcor and Cities of Bronze for Frostgrave

As mentioned I am a fan of Dragonbane, so adding this was a no brainer. I added The Witcher supplement as I have The Witcher RPG, and although I haven't got this onto the table yet, I thought this supplement might be useful when I finally do. It was a similar situation for the card decks for Root. I own Root: The Roleplaying Game, again not getting round to putting this on the table yet but thought the card decks would be useful when I do. I picked up the supplements for Frostgrave as this is something I not only play (when I get the time) but also enjoy crafting for if you remember here.

All in all it has been quite a good first half of 2025 for gaming stuff for me.

J

Deep Space - Mini Campaign

If you remember I ran a Deep Space one-shot here and the folks in the group were enthusiastic enough to want a short campaign. I decided to string together some of the pre-written adventures published by Farsight Games into a mini-campaign, starting off where they left off after the one-shot, and working towards a grand finale with another adventure of my own creation.

After running through a few of the adventures I can say I do like the Deep Space system very much. This is a rules light system so there are plenty of instances of making adjudications on the fly about what the players can and cannot do, but as long as you are consistent in your rulings I have never found this to be a problem when running the game. There is a published 'background' which you can find in official supplements from Farsight Games, but there are enough gaps in the information that you can mould and shape this to your own desires; much like I did for this campaign. I look forward to finishing this mini-campaign and if I was to revisit Deep Space in the future, I will use the informaiton and background I have already constructed and move on from there.

There are some (quite small) maps in the published adventures, and I am a sucker for a nice map, and an even bigger sucker for handouts at the table. So for this campaign, I decided to re-draw them as full size handouts.

I have found Dungeon Scrawl to be a most excellent programme to draft maps of all sort in. If you remember I first wrote about Dungeon Scrawl here and through that initial experience in drawing the maps for Hrogroth's Tower, I was schooled enough to tackle the sci-fi maps for Deep Space. As you can see from the following examples, I decided to go with a blue background for the city maps, as I thought this would make it reminiscent of old blueprint drawings which would be a nice aesthetic; and for the ship map i went with a more traditional black outline to highlight the ship super-structure. I also improved in my Dungeon Scrawl abilities, getting the likes of text and doors into my maps.

All in all Deep Space is a great rules light sci-fi system and I had a blast running through some of the pre-published adventures. I am looking forward to playing more, and looking forward to making more maps.

J

Dragonbane

I got the chance to play Dragonbane by Free League. 

The wonderful Gerry (pictured holding the map) has the starter set and ran us thorough one of the adventures within this as a one-shot. 

The starter set itself is great, coming with a map, as well as pre-generated character sheets, a deck of treasure cards, a deck of initiative cards, and other stuff.

The initiative system is where I think Dragonbane wins. The initiative cards are shuffled and then dealt out around the table, including the monsters or NPCs the adventurers are combatting with. You only have one action, and that includes dodging attacks against you, so if you use your action to attack and then the creature attacks you later in the round, you can't attempt to dodge to lessen the effect. Some creatures have special attacks allowing them more than one action in a round, which makes figuring our who should go when in the party and what action to take means everyone is invested in the combat. The nice thing about the initiative system and why I like it, is that every round the initiative cards get recalled, shuffled and dealt out again. You might have gone first last round, but this round you are now way down the initiative order. There are a limited number of swaps you can take for initiative, but as things change each round, it keeps you as a player involved with what is going on.

We didn't complete the starter-set adventure that day as we ran out of time, but we were all enthusiastic to play more.

 We managed to persuade the GM to run another session (or two) and so after the holiday period when things had quietened down a bit, we got back together to play more Dragonbane. This time we had a couple of different players at the table so we decided to roll up characters from scratch as we hoped to play Dragonbane through a few adventures. 

I am really enjoying Dragonbane, and enjoyed it that much I picked up a copy of the rulebook for myself – but that is for another story!

J

Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop: A Year Upon the River

As mentioned here the previous few years haven't left me with much free time so I have concentrated on RPGs where I can. With travelling to and from hospitals, or stopping over with family members, I wanted to occupy my time with something which was either quick or something I could carry with me to play and decided to look back into solo gaming again. I last did solo gaming during lockdown and you can read about that here.

I picked up Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop: A Year Upon the River in digital format from a charity bundle. This is a solo journaling rpg and what first struck me to give this a try was the title and the cover art. The rpg is by Ella Lim who also did the internal art (cover was by Linnea Sterte by the way) and you can pick up a copy from lostwaysclub.com

I fell in love with this game when I started reading through it. The idea is you are the new (anthropomorphic animal) caretaker of a floating bookshop and will travel up and down the river over the course of a year meeting people, selling books and gathering stories.

I have never played a journaling rpg before, as I have often felt I am bad at journaling in general for any notebook I have looks like a jumbled mess of incoherent ramblings. That being said, I have found a love for those collaborative map making storytelling games, such as The Quiet Year, so I thought I would stretch myself a bit further and try journaling. I did go so far as to watch some YouTube videos and read some articles about journaling. I was so enthusiastic to try this game I even got myself a proper journal to write in and some nice handwriting pens!

The artwork, both the cover and internal, are very evocative and as part of the game they encourage you to create your own bookshop. I drew my bookshop having traced out the outline of the floor plan they provided and then filling in the detail myself. I also decided to add a splash of colour to my bookshop with some colouring pencils.

I chose to be a Red Fox called Rin who used to run an out of the way and failing bookshop in a distant seaside town, who having had enough of the drearyness decided to set out and wander the lands. Coming across the floating bookshop and seemingly knowing enough about books and bookshops the locals called me the bookseller and so Rin is now the new owner of the floating bookshop.

I am still playing this, having put it down for a few months when things got busy at home again, but I am looking forward to picking up where I left off and continuing my journey up and down the river telling stories of Rin and his new adventures.

J

Inspiration 5

The last couple of years have been tough with ongoing family health issues and while this hasn't stopped my gaming it has changed my current focus due to my time availability. You will have seen that the focus lately has been on RPGs and RPG Saturday. Committing to this meant I couldn't keep up with other aspects of my gaming (scenery making, wargaming, board games, etc.) as well as look after family members. A lot of this other stuff has been packed away in storage so as to not clutter up the place, so just dipping-in to something not role-playing is no easy task. All is not lost however as there is light at the end of the tunnel and given time I will be back at the other aspects of gaming and not just RPGS.

Inspiration comes in many forms and below are some things which has inspired me over the last few years.

Patreon

Monster on the Month Club - You might remember I mentioned Graeme Davis blog https://graemedavis.word press.com/ in a previous inspiration piece.  Monster of the Mo nth Club  is his new venture (on Patreon) producing system agnostic monsters for your game. The Monster of the Month Club is definitely worth a visit, and Graeme's blog is still a great resource.

Podcasts

Role-playing Public Radio - I have mentioned RPPR before but still a great resource. The website (podcast and now YouTube channel) are great, but there is also a Patreon page https://www.patreon.com/RPPR and although I joined the Patreon for the bonus podcasts (which are well worth it by the way) I stayed for all the extra content.

Ludonarrative Dissidents - I have mentioned Ludonarrative Dissidents before and not only is this a great resource, this has inspired me to buy new RPG material. Some of the games and supplements that have been reviewed in the last few seasons I have decided to purchase for myself.

Vintage RPG Podcast - Vintage RPG was something which was a 'recommended' channel on Instagram, and whilst I am not a hardcore Dungeons and Dragons fan which this is reportedly aimed at, it was intriguing enough for me to take a deeper look. The podcast, is well worth the listen as the hosts take a dive into a variety of RPGs and Board Games.

Reddit

Whilst I have a love/hate relationship with Reddit, Writing Prompts https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/ is a great source for inspiration.

Other

Samuel Steele - I have mentioned Samuel Steele in the past and Samuel has been busy in the past few years creating several random-table zines and books for your RPGs. I have backed several of these and have used a couple in recent games.

DTRPG - I have mentioned DriveThruRPG (DTRPG) as one of my go-to places to buy RPGs. This hasn't changed and there are some great offers on so definitely worth keeping an eye on this. Many of the recommendations from the Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast were purchased through here.

Bundle of Holding - I have mentioned this before but Bundle of Holding does have some great deals on and it is a good idea to keep this in your eyeline.

You can see that as my focus has been more on RPGs lately my inspiration has also changed focus. I am still listening to podcasts such as The Infinite Monkey Cage and No Such Thing as a Fish, and still watching YouTube channels such as Black Magic Craft, Wyloch's Armory, and Dungeon Craft, but these have taken a bit of a back seat with regards my gaming resources.

J

Race to Dereliction - A one-shot for Deep Space RPG

Deep Space is a rules light sci-fi RPG by Jonathan Hicks. I wanted to play something sci-fi as a bit of a pallet cleanser as I have played in fantasy settings for quite some time now. I thought Deep Space was an easy, quick and fun game to run after picking up the core rules and a couple of the supplements. My initial thoughts were to run a one-shot for RPG Saturday, and if players liked it and wanted to do more I would then run a short campaign.

I put together a primer for my players covering the rules from the core rule book and supplements I wanted to include. This was very useful as no-one had played Deep Space before so I was able to walk everyone though the rules without me forgetting to inform the players something relevant.

An option is to allow players to take a specialist skill. As I was going to be initially running Deep Space a a one-shot I thought why not; if it went badly I could write it off and not worry about special skills in the future. I may have gone a bit overboard with my examples of a specialist skill when describing to my players – as you will find out later. The key for the specialist skills is that the players can use this particular skill when appropriate, e.g. cooking – when the player might want to taste food for poison, or check if a plant might be edible, or art – then a character might want to check for a forgery, or want to evaluate how much an art piece is worth.

I have decided to set all my Deep Space games about 200 years into the future. This is about 100 years after the official Deep Space background, but I believe gives me enough scope to mould things to my own liking whilst being able to pull in all the background material I need from what has already been published.

I needed some inspiration and remembered a story about a strange radio signal being found.

In the spring of 2017, Arecibo astronomers detected strange radio signals thought to originate from Ross 128 that were unlike any they had seen before. SETI's Allen Telescope Array was used for follow-up observations and was unable to detect the signal but did detect man made interference, making it seem clear that the Arecibo detections were due to transmissions from Earth satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Ross 128 has a declination (a coordinate which can be likened to latitude) of close to 0 degrees, which places it in the thick of a phalanx of these satellites. Therefore, it can be concluded that the signal was a result of man-made interference.

Race to Dereliction

A transponder has begun sending out a signal from the uninhabited planet of Gill-GS5. Many of the major corporations and Earth Nations have put together their own missions to find out what is going on. Your job is to make planet-fall, find the transponder and work out what has happened before any other factions arrive.

The transponder would belong to an emergency beacon from failing cryopods; which would be different to a distress beacon, or an emergency crash beacon as I might want to use these specifics in later scenarios. These pods would be in a crashed colony ship, The Odyssey, one of the first colony ships to be sent out from the European Superstate (ESS). The planet would be inhabited by strange creatures, like mindless human sized starfish monsters, which caused initial rescue missions to do a quick search and rescue of the crashed ship, find nothing of interest then quarantine the planet due to the alien lifeforms there.

Now the cryopod signal has been sent out meaning that something is still alive on The Odyssey, the ESS want something or someone onboard that ship to be brought back, but as the emergency beacon broadcast the signal far and wide, several other factions and corporations have added themselves to the plan. You job is to get there first, find out what has happened and get back with whatever information and objects you can.

I decided to do a bit of free-form role-play at the start after character creation to dial in several key points to set-up and round out the characters.

• What is your name?
• Who do you work for and what do you do as a job / career?
• What connection do you have with (some of) the others in the group?
• What role will you take aboard the spaceship (pilot, navigator, security, gunner, medic, engineer, etc.)?

This got the players talking to each other, and bouncing ideas off each other right from the start which I think made the game overall better. I will definitely try and do more of this in future games.

The Cast

• Lucretia – A charismatic charity organiser who runs a charity for cybernetic penguins – specialist skill Disassociation – Pilot
• Pam – A bright young star who is a crack shot with a rifle, fresh from cadet school and waiting for enrolment into ESS military – specialist skill Rubik's Cube – Gunner
• Carlos – contracted mechanic for Tri-Optimum Corp. who specialise in Space Station repairs – specialist skill Poker – Engineer
• Gill – ex-ESS-mil who has been working for Jupiter Mining Corp. as their medic – specialist skill Innate Orientation – Medic
• Dirk – space station security 'space ranger' for space station Alpha55 and owner of the Barry van Dyke fan club – specialist knowledge Extensive Knowledge of the TV career of Barry van Dyke – Security
• Burt – contracted mechanic for Tri-Optimum Corp. who specialise in Space Station repairs – specialist Skill Indecisiveness – Engineer
• Spike – a bounty hunter working with the ESS in private contracts – specialist skill Deduction – Communications (although described more as a Face-man or Negotiator) [at the end of the game Spike's player wanted to change his character from a Bounty Hunter to a Mafioso (of some underworld gang from ESS) without changing any other skills or stats, so Spike / Bounty Hunter was an alias and he is actually Vincenzo / Mafioso]

As you can see we had some pretty wild specialist skills, and although I could have made the players take something different, why should I have limited their fun when my players can quite easily limit the characters themselves. I decided, for better or worse to roll with it, and by the end of the session there were only two skills which hadn't been used or used to their full extent – so I am going to call that a win for the random specialist skills.

I ran a short vignette to get them to meet with a contact from ESS officially hiring them for the mission, providing them with a spaceship, the ESSS-Amelia, and allowed them to ask questions (Charisma check) or do some research on the Holonet (Science check). This was essentially a bit of role-playing as I gave them a data-stick which they could plug into the ship which would not only give them coordinates to head to but provide them all the relevant information as follows:

• The transponder signal corresponds to one of the first European colonial ships that left Earth, The Odyssey. It was never heard from again after leaving the Solar system,
• The transponder signal is an older type used around the time of the first space missions beyond the Solar system and is typically only sent under extreme circumstances for search and rescue missions, typically such signals indicate the ships cryopods are failing.
• Prominent citizens were on board The Odyssey.
• The planet Gill-GS5 is listed as uninhabited with rocky terrain and minimum vegetation (shrubs and grasses), no known resources.
• The Odyssey crashed on planet Gill-GS5. This was verified by other missions to the Gill star system after the expansion into Deep Space. It was reported no survivors.
• Gill system is listed as being owned by MBMC.
• MBMC have their main mining operations around the outer gas giants GS6 and GS7 as well smaller operations on the inner barren planets GS2 and GS3
• Gill-GS5 is listed as having alien life, listed in those early reports as monsters.
• Gill-GS5 has little to no resources, and with the alien life present has not been mined.
• Early Earth military classified Gill-GS5 as quarantined due to the monsters.

For the layout of the crashed ship and the landing sites I envisaged a plateau of some sort for the players and other factions to land on, with some level of vegetation, depending on how well they passed their skill check. A shallow valley for the crew to traverse thick with vegetation but where a path could be selected, and where they would encounter the monsters and other factions; a small hill at a height above the plateau, with the crashed ship embedded in the ground somewhere near the top, the hill having sparse vegetation.

I had no plans for the ship itself, except there would be an entrance near the cockpit at the front of the ship, the crew would have to then traverse to mid-ships and head down a couple of levels to get to the cryopods.

I didn't have much detail beyond what was above, and anything else was either made up on the fly, or was one of the story points of the overall plot outlined below. In this way I was able to let the players decide what to do, providing prompts and describing outcomes depending on how well or poor their skill checks went.

I wanted to the players to feel some jeopardy and informed them that several other ships have arrived in orbit around the planet. It would only be a matter of time before they came across another faction. To open the scene on the planet I let the designated 'pilot' make a Pilot Starship check to navigate to the correct side of the planet and land the ship as near the crash site as possible, interpreting the results from below:

• Excellent roll – The crew lands first, about 20 min walk to crash site, little to no vegetation to hamper them. They will see a spaceship from a random faction land just as they make it to the crashed ship.
• Good (Pass) roll – The crew lands first, MBMC will land second and further back (once the crew have cleared their landing site and are en route to the crashed ship), about 45 min walk to crash site, some vegetation to hamper them. Just before they make the crashed ship a third random faction will be seen to land.
• Poor (Fail) roll – MBMC land first, and the crew will land second and further back , about 45 min walk to crash site, will pass MBMC ship, some vegetation to hamper them, gunfight or negotiation might happen. A third random faction will land just as the crew pass the MBMC ship.
• Terrible roll – MBMC and another random faction will land before the crew, the crew will land over a 60 min walk to the crash site, will pass the other ships, heavy vegetation to hamper them, gunfight will definitely happen, the crew might be able to negotiate with one of the other factions but not both. Once the crew make it to outside the crashed spaceship they will note a fourth random faction land. There will definitely be a gunfight.

Depending on what the players decide to do, I would offer up the following:

• Subterfuge check to avoid the monsters on the way to the crash site. The denser the vegetation the higher the difficulty to avoid the monsters.
• Science check to find their way through the vegetation and not get lost (which will either make them cross paths with other factions, or add time to allow other factions to reach the crash site first). The denser the vegetation the higher the difficulty to not get lost.
• Science / Mechanical / Strength check to power up systems and get through doors to explore the crashed ship. Pass they have a straight forward path and find some key information about the ship, the crash, the monsters, etc.; Fail they have to double back to find a different way to mid-ships or try a different entrance, whilst getting ambushed by monsters or other factions.
• There is a monster / droid / mutated-human in the cryopod deck (I never figured this out before hand but in the end I had some sort of monster in a mechanical suit) either breaking cryo-pods or pulling out the power-cells to kill those inside – The crew must eliminate this threat before being allowed to continue to defrost and free the humans in the cryopods.
• Science or Mechanical check to free the people in the cryopods. Pass they have a straight forward defrost cycle, Fail something goes wrong and they get ambushed by monsters or other factions.
• Subterfuge check to head back to their ship and avoid monsters and other factions. Pass they are back without a scratch, fail they encounter monsters or other factions.
• Pilot Starship check to navigate to the rendezvous point without being detected. If they are detected, they will have to fight or escape and rendezvous later.

I ran a little vignette afterwards as they hand over the humans from the cryopods along with what material and information they uncovered from the crashed ship.

Conclusion

In the end the players had some exceptional rolls landing first and avoiding other factions until the return journey. They only encountered one monster on the way to the crash site which scarred them enough they were overly cautious from that point onward. They found a science lab with genetic modification and terraforming equipment and surmised that the monsters likely came from an escaped experiment after the crash. They collected as much data and samples as they could to being back to the ESS. The players managed to lure and trap the monster in the cryopod deck into an elevator shaft allowing them an easier time in at the cryopods. The humans they found on board were two prominent ESS personnel and a scientist (who was doing all the crazy genetic modification and terraforming).

All in all the players had a good time, and I enjoyed running Deep Space and look forward to running more in the future.

J

Yarr - Danish Gold - A one-shot for Talk Like a Pirate Day 2024

If you want to know more about Talk Like A Pirate Day you'll find that here.

I like pirates and pirate stuff; so it was natural that I would be into a Pirate role-playing game, such as Yarr!, and also natural to want to do something 'piratey' for Talk Like A Pirate Day.

I am, as of writing this, in a play-test group for an as-yet-undisclosed-RPG-designer and I wanted to try out some of the material they were working on to gauge how it worked in a real live RPG session to give better feedback. The fact Talk Like A Pirate Day was coming up was the prefect excuse. I came up with the following:

Danish Gold

Captain Morgan has put the word out he is looking for a crew to head out into the Wild Atlantic in search of treasure.
Rumours of a burial site filled with gold thought to belong to Old Scandinavian explorers await for those sea dogs willing to put their backs into it.
If you are interested there is a pint o'grog at the Lame Dog for you.
Slackers need not apply.

• The plan for the players was simple. Meet with Captain Morgan and negotiate passage as crew and work detail. Sail out to the island and dig for treasure. Return home with gold aplenty.
• The trouble for the players was Captain Morgan is a distasteful man and will not take no for an answer lightly. The main (and quickest) way on and off the island is with Captain Morgan. The gold is cursed.

As this scenario was for a one-shot in order to use some play-test material, I decided to put a bit more effort into the background of the island should I want to use this for future games and I really enjoyed the research and work I put into this.

After my last attempt at map making, here, I thought it would be another great idea to make maps and handouts for this scenario.

I wanted an island to house everything on and after a bit of internet research came across redblobgames.com which allowed you to generate island maps. Playing about with the settings I got a map I liked, downloaded it and began my magic - grey-scaling the map, placing town locations and adding detail like town names, etc. Most of the annotation work was done by hand for the purposes of this map, but if I was to use this again in the future, I might decide to annotate this digitally so I could change or add things to the map more easily.

For the grave-site, I cropped the area of the peninsula I wanted to use, then enlarged that to A4 as I planned to hand annotate this also. Again, if I decide to use this going forward, I will probably annotate this digitally as well so as to make changes more easily.

I also put together a simple collage of images of the burial sites for the players to give them an idea of looks of the place.

The players would meet on and island elsewhere (I use an island called Hope Island as my go to generic Caribbean Island of choice and as a base for my pirate games) to gather rumours and negotiate with Captain Morgan before sailing out on adventure.

Holmsa Island

An outlying island to the north-east of the main Caribbean Islands, about 80miles into the Atlantic. This island is approximately 18 miles across and was previously settled by Viking explorers many years ago. There are some small settlements where the descendants of those original explorers still reside (~100 people in total).

• The largest and main village on the island is Olafsvellir, located to the south-west. Low fences surround the village and sheep can be seen grazing in small paddocks, as well as roaming free in the hills outside the village.

• The second largest village on the island is Holmr, located to the north. A ring of pine trees surrounds the village.

• The third largest village on the island is Mork, located to the north-east.

• The smallest village on the island is Bildsfell, located to the south.

• The island is quite insular and few foreigners live on the island.

• The island trades goods and services with the other Caribbean islands.

• Each settlement has a few ships which travel between Holmsa and the Caribbean.

• The island is owned by the Danish, and Danish is the primary language spoken there. Secondary language is English. Some of the islanders still know Old Scandinavian and Runic.

• The north-east corner of the island is used as a burial site for the whole island. Everyone on Holmsa gets buried here.

Aki Gettson (NPC)

Guide and Shaman of Holmsa Island.

Weather beaten and grey flecked bushy beard wild hair, this burly older man wears layered furs and leathers. Carrying a wooden staff with several runes carved along it's length, he wears several carved wooden pieces as medallions.

The Burial Grounds

In the north-east corner of the island is a peninsula which is used as burial grounds for the island. At the end of the road just before the burial grounds there is a stone lodge house and stable used for shelter by funeral attendees, and beyond this is a stone bridge leading to the peninsula and the burial grounds proper.

There are three stages of burials on the peninsula. Furthest away from the bridge are old burial mounds surrounded by stone circles, typical of those used in traditional Viking burials. This general area also includes large marker stones (menhir) at the front and back entrance. Coming closer to the bridge is a section of early Christian Viking burial mounds, typically a medium depth grave with a single rune-covered marker stone at one end. Closest to the bridge are the modern Christian graves.

The One-Shot

The game went well and we all had fun, although it ran over two sessions rather than the planned one. Some of that was my fault, some of that was contributed to two of the players having to leave early. Also Captain Morgan, whilst being a distasteful NPC, was outright vilified by the party where they did everything in their power to kill the Captain during the game. Not what I had planned and I did have to improvise quite a bit, especially after they managed to kill Captain Morgan and his personal Bodyguard and First Mate!

I was happy with the play-test material, and more than happy with the Island of Holmsa. I hope that what I have presented here is useful, and if I can think of another scenario I will use this again next year.

J