[Analogue] The Christmas wrapping starts here...

The painting challenge started with a bang and 20 points have now been claimed for these 4 mummies. Only another 580 points (or 116 more models this size) to reach my goal. Le sigh. As you probably recognise, these guys are from the original Heroquest box. After a bit of a cleanup and lots of hacking to remove the bases, they painted up very quickly... twice. The first time they got messed up by frosting on the varnish and the usual tricks didn't seem to work on repairing them. Ah well.

These will go nicely in the Warhammer Quest/HeroQuest/Advanced Heroquest rebuild project as well as working well with IHMN, Strange Aeons and Pulp Alley. Hows that for versatility?

The painting process is nice and simple.

They started with an all over coat of something light and creamy. Doesn't really matter what as any variation will work for dirty cotton rags. After that has dried do an all over wash of Devlan mud followed by a targeted wash of a dark brown in the really dark recesses. Once that has dried, go back and pick out some highlights on the rags with the original base coat.

The skin was a mix of flesh and a dark grey to give the desecated, mummified flesh colour as the mummies in the British museum are bordering on black thanks to the mummification process. This is washed with black and then highlighted with the original mix plus a little bit more flesh.

Last finishing touch is a very dark mossy green wash on some parts of the rags to give it that slimy, festering look. I was tempted to do some sandy weatherin powders on them too, but felt that would tie them too closely to a desert environment.

The haunter of the dark

And we return, briefly, to the plots from Lovecraft's tales and how they could be twisted to hooks for other games. When I started this, I was aiming at picking ideas that would be useful for a WW2 Cthulhu rpg setting, but as time goes on it's become obvious that these (and most of the previous ones) would also work well as ideas for other games as well. Anyway...

The Haunter of the dark

In The Haunter of the Dark, a cult based on Rhode Island use an ancient artifact, the "Shining Trapezohedron" to summon a being from the depths of time and space (your usual Lovecraft nasty). The artifact had been discovered in Egypt by Professor Enoch Bowen before his return to the US in 1844. It was used by a cult in Providence who would stare into the glowing crystal and summon an avatar of Nyarlathotep called the Haunter in the Dark. The summoned creature demanded sacrifice in return for granting knowledge of forbidden places and information.

At the end of the story Dr Dexter, our would-be hero, throws the the artifact into Narragansett Bay in the hopes that it would permanently place it into the light of day and the stars, which keeps the Haunter at bay.

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There are a number of ways we could use this, so I'll break it down into some ideas for different eras and games

For systems like In Her Majesty's Name, Pulp Alley and possibly even Dead Man's Hand if you fancied adding some oddness, you could run a number of scenarios surrounding the original story:

• A secret cult has been guarding the trapezohedron, keeping the world safe for millenia, until this group of American archeologists come along and start digging up the burial site. Can the archeologists be stopped, or will the Haunter return from the darkness?
• The artifact is on it's return journey to America, along with a number of other items, but the team need to stop off in London. A rival archeologist, cult or somesuch group decides they want something that is in the shipment and must be fought off
• Upon reaching America, the cult in Providence needs to go and find some poor souls to sacrifice. Can they kidnap enough people from the foggy streets before the police catch up to them?

For a WW2 setting we're on shakier ground with the original story as the object is deep underwater by this time. However, it could have been recovered by divers looking for a shipwreck, or there could be a companion to it that wasn't uncovered by the original excavations. This companion could now be in the hands of Black Sun, a German occult group, and it's up to the investigators to retrieve the object before their plans can be finalised.

Copper

After watching Peaky Blinders the other day, I found another BBC series on Lovefilm that looked interesting; this time it's a BBC America series called Copper from 2012. This is apparently a milestone series for BBC America as it's their first program written specifically written for them, rather than importing an existing show.

Copper is set in 1860s New York and follows an Irish immigrant police detective, Kevin Corcoran, and his squad as they try to keep the peace in the Five Points neighborhood, surrounded by the social and political issues of the ongoing civil war.

From episode one it jumps right into the story and doesn't seem to slow down, building up some great characterisation and ongoing plot threads. Kevin is searching for information on his missing wife and dead daughter, while his friend, Robert Morehouse tries to outdo his father's growing land grab and Doctor Freeman faces the ongoing racism in New York, despite his bravery during the civil war.

For some reason this doesn't appear to have aired in the UK, despite being picked up for season two, and isn't available on Region 2 DVD either, which is a real shame as the three episodes I've seen so far are great. We can only hope that they make an appearance now that season one is available on Lovefilm Instant.

Much like Ripper Street, The Devil's Whore and Peaky Blinders, I'm sure it's rife with historical inaccuracies that will leave Claire (and other historians) shouting at the TV, but I think they are fun and will all be great for IHMN/Pulp Alley/Strange Aeons adventures. 


So. What other historically inaccurate tv series should I be catching up on for gaming inspiration??

Peaky Blinders

Last night I finally got around to watching the first episode of Peaky Blinders, the new BBC2 drama set in 1920s Birmingham. It's the tale of a family gang, the Peaky Blinders, who run a series of rackets around Birmingham and get their name from the razor blades sewn into the peaks of their caps.

I'd not really heard anything about it until after the first episode had aired, so it was a bit of a surprise to find Sam Neill and Cillian Murphy in the main roles and Nick Cave's Red Right Hand as the theme music. Cillian plays the young war veteran and rising star of the Peaky Blinders, with Sam Neill playing the Northern Irish Chief Inspector who has been drafted in to clean up Birmingham's rough streets by a young Churchill.

So far this is something very special. It feels like the writers and director have been paying close attention to what the Americans have been doing with some of their shows over the last few years and decided they could do one better. The cinematography is beautiful and so far there are some great plots kicking off, many of which would fit really nicely into an IHMN game. Roll on the next episode!