Artificer's Intuition

"Chill!" - Mr. Freeze I've lately been on an ebay kick.  I've been searching for minis and trying to find some cool stuff for my campaigns.  I stumbled across the gargantuan dragons, and I felt like they would be an awesome epic threat to my campaigns (as well as being dragons).  Unfortunately, most of them were pretty expensive and hard to find.   I did some exploring on Amazon, and I was able to stumble across a gargantuan white dragon for cheap.  I quickly ordered the special set.   And so today, I was able to unbox it. The dragon came in this box. After cutting the tape and opening it up, I pulled out the cardboard that the miniatures were attached to. Inside the box was another little case with the map, scenario packet, and the cards. Once that was done, it was time to look at the minis.  Wulfgar and Drizzt seemed to have paint jobs that were sub par for most of the other minis I have purchased, and Wulfgar&#

"May the odds ever be in your favor." - The Hunger Games While I have never read the books, I know many people who are stoked for the movie of The Hunger Games .  I thought it would be cool to look at some of the themes from the novels and apply them to various Dungeons and Dragons adventures.  I hope that fans of the books will be pleased with the results.  Forgive me if I make an basic mistakes, I'm simply looking at overall themes, not nitty gritty details.  Don't worry, I have no desire to watch the movie before I read the books myself. This post is dedicated to you Hunger Games fans.  Have fun at your midnight release! Pretty much "the" big even in The Hunger Games is the actual games themselves, a free-for-all fight to the death in a large arena-like location.  There is only one victor.  I can see many DM's and players getting excited over the thought of such an event for DnD games, but there is somewhat of a problem.  In fact, this p

"And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed." - Genesis 2:8 Being a Christian, I have always thought about finding ways of putting the Faith in my games/stories (Tolkien is one of my heroes).  Lately, I've been studying Genesis, and how many of the pieces fit together, and how the book explains the beginning of our existence.  And from that, I've been inspired to bring some of that into my DnD game.  The following quote explains my thinking about why I want to, and why I get excited at the thought.     "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer howev

"The earth belongs to the living, not the dead." - Thomas Jefferson Today I'll be talking about the last of the elements, earth.  I wrote about the first three (water, air and fire), took a little bit of a break, and am now back to finish up the series I had started.  And so, it's time to talk about earth. Earth has long been my favorite element, as I like plants and nature.  However, earth can also describe the rock formations and dirt, etc.  And so, there are many topics to discuss when it comes to the element of earth. The most obvious thing, in my opinion, to do for earth is to create an earthquake in the middle of a battle.  The players confront the big enemy, until their foe casts a hugely powerful spell which creates a huge rift in the middle of the battlefield.  This is a game changer, but it's not crazy enough for me. And so, enter the Dungeon Tiles.  This is my favorite set to use for pictures in the blog, and it's also the set that

"We're gonna need a bigger boat." - Jaws Today,while at my friendly local gaming shop, I decided to purchase a box of the Pathfinder miniatures.  I had already bought a few singles (the goblins are by far my favorite), and I decided that I wanted to invest in a box.  And so I did. However, that doesn't amount to the awesome promo figure my shop was selling: a huge black dragon.  Now, the price was a little crazy, so I had to stop and think about it.  And the more I thought, the more that little voice said "Karl.  You wrote about how dragons need to be a big deal.  You're slowly creating a nice heroic level threat for your players.  How about something to build up to next?" And I said "I want this." I came home and went online, looking at ebay for how much the dragon was going for.  To my great joy, I was able to buy mine at a cheaper price than what it was going for on ebay.  That felt like a win to me. To make matters ev

" T hey debated long on what was to be done, but they could think of no way of getting rid of Smaug - which had always been a weak point in their plans, as Bilbo felt inclined to point out."  - The Hobbit I was extremely excited for the next session of Dovesong Abbey.  So much so that I had built and constructed the vaults a weekend in advance (people had other life things going on, so we had a little bit of a break).  My biggest complaint about constructing the Vaults was that I couldn't do it with one set of "The Dungeon" dungeon tiles, so I had to borrow some tiles from other sets to complete it, with a little bit of my own tweaking. Half of the ping pong table converted into "The Vaults" The session started well, with a lot of roleplaying and character interaction in order for the group to win over the minotaurs.  Bastin lured a kobold to help him, which was promptly slain with several minotaurs to make it look like the kobold

"Thought is the blossom, language the bud, action the fruit behind it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson I'm taking a short break from writing about the elements.  I wanted to write about something different while I collect my ideas.  And so, I'm writing this blog. I spoke with my mom about my blog, and about the things that I'm writing/sharing and the ideas.  She suggested using these games and blog to promote other things. So, today I want to talk about language. The core DnD game has several languages.  Common, Goblin, Elven, etc.  The real world has several main languages.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Language is something that adds depth and character to the world around us.  I'm fascinated by language.  I spent some time studying German.  My grandfather can speak it, and I think it's cool to learn another language, as well as learning a part of my family history.  Many of my friends can speak other languages, or have dabbled in them.  I want to