Under the Guidance of Will-of-the-Torch...

Mostly posting to say I've not died from alien face-eating disease yet.

But here's a little something I've been working on for my next stint as Game Master. In my continuation of expanding and testing my own little RPG system, I've started working on a teeny-weeny Swords & Sorcery-ish addition if we ever need it. Right now I'm working on the sorcery part. It's mostly just the working concept of spells right now, with 8 tiers (referred to as circinates) of spells. They aren't technically circles of magic, so much as just separate groupings of various schools of spell-casting. I'm not too happy with 'wanderlight's name, as it doesn't quite fit the naming scheme I'm going for. Hell, even the spell 'anemos' was a bit of a pain in the ass to name; you'd think there just was a single term for gill-/water-breathing that I could easily find. Each circinate is considered its own single 'skill' for the purpose of the system's skill structure; archetypes are as close as we get to classes in this game. Anyhoo, below is the basic skeleton of the cumulative list, devoid of proper costs, casting times and other inconveniences beyond a few notes of what each one does.

From the very start I wanted every magic-user to be capable of two things: inflicting harm, and healing it. Magic in this setting is supposed to generally be more primal and elemental in nature. Each spell should have its own aesthetic qualities as fitting to its caster. Another thing I wanted to try avoiding with these spells was make more flexible abilities that weren't as specific and cookie-cutter as D&D's spells tended to be. If outcomes or purposes were somewhat familiar, they would be merged together in the name of versatility.

Damage (1 BP* taken, damage objects)
Mend (1 BP* healed, mend objects)

    1st Circinate
Flare (spontaneous fire to target object or person, 1 damage/10 ranks)
Heal (1d6+1/10 ranks)
Lift (levitate one's self, or other things)
Cloak (minor invisibility and muffled movement)
Stamina (+1d6 max HP 1 minute/10 ranks)
Strength (+1 STR/20 ranks)
Wanderlight (floating orb of light/light spell)

    2nd Circinate
Anemos (allows water-breathing)
Coma (target or targets put in magic sleep)
Drain (drains target STR or HP to 1, DC is points spent)
Expedience (+1 action every second round/10 ranks)
Harm (1d6+1/10 ranks)
Shock (stun, effects increase/10 ranks)
Wallow (become relaxed in environment, mask scent, laugh at mosquitos)
Ward (minor force shields self)
Wealth (transmute material into food, drink, and simple objects)

    3rd Circinate
Open (open portal)
Warmth (resist cold, makes warm)
Cold (resist heat, makes cold)
Ground (resist electricity, makes slow)
Sanctuary (sanctuary)
Seal (arcane lock)
Fireball (fireball)
Fortitude (resistence to poison, disease and radiation)
Attor (envenoms target weapon, teeth or claws)

    4th Circinate
Wall (earth wall)
Noise (spell shield/radius dispell)
salubrity (+1d6 HP healed/10 ranks)
Shuck (ignore 2 damage/10 ranks each hit for duration)
Outstay (+1 CON/20 ranks)
Curse (-1/-5 to specified score/skill/10 ranks)
Wrack (elemental storm 1d6 damage/10 ranks)

    5th Circinate
Sting (enhance weapon or claw)
Hale (cure ailment, poison and diseases)
Shatter (intense vision/nightmare, 1d10 damage, instant fatigue)
Snare (holds individual)
Sending (personal message anywhere, only to reciever)
Vanish (turn invisible)
Raise (bring physical body to animation)

    6th Circinate
Bore (make holes in walls or form pits)
Sweep (obliterates mold, dust, poison and weak beings)
Field (invisible force blocks passage and projectile)
Sap (leeches mana or HP from nearby energies (magic things, people, etc.)
Conjure (1HD/something points, make entity shaped by maker's imagination)
Obscure (changes appearance)
Behold (allows true seeing)

    7th Circinate
Death (ethereal emenation kills the weak, weakens the strong)
Rend (attacks bypass defenses)
Mirror (turn invisible as fake double fools enemies)
Storm (calls forth lightning to strike enemies)
Portal (creates door through solid mass)
Phantasm (manifests spectral entity to assist combat)
Shift (alter appearance and change shape)

    8th Circinate
Petrify (gaze or grasp to turn target to stone)
Wither (inflict life-consuming curse)
Destroy (obliterates target entity)
Wish (alters reality to some degree)
Malign (alter appearance and change shape of others)

*BP stands for Body Point. Characters usually take damage to their BP instead of their CON scores for determining death that eschews hit points.

And Here's an Update. (Finally)

Here they are, as originally promised, though late certainly and in no way fashionably so. Ended up being fairly busy with this and that yesterday, so couldn't take some piccies until just recently. Behold: the inconsistent trial runs of my borrowed camera!

First up is a scavenger/scout sort of fellow from Grenadier's now defunct Future Skirmish line (though still available from em-4, but I'm sure you all know that). Another fine figure from Copplestone's illustrious past. Actually painted him a little while back but never got around to photographing him, and I think you can see some of the dust he's accumulated, oh, balls. Hopefully I've rendered the dark, smoothed leather look I was going for with his hood. I've still forgotten to put some tufts of grass on his base, it seems. Though I've not been able to find any of my flock, nor any of my static grass since I've moved into this house. I've still got lots of wood chip grass from my first days of terrain making (more on that later), but really, it doesn't look that pretty.

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Next we've got a smallish group shot featuring the scav to the center, the first of many raiders to the left, and one of my Stalker-eresque conversions brandishing base colours. I like the purple scarf; it's manly. All Copplestone sculpts.

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And here's another picture of that loveable sadist. I really enjoyed painting his skin, as I've never had so much space to paint it with before, though through my flailing and failing with photography, I don't know if I've done him justice enough. I've noticed a lot of my blending often doesn't carry over with my pictures, with many of the shots being too over-exposed and whatnot. Do note: this fellow and his base both aren't done; I'm very sporadic in my painting. The last time I was working on this guy was almost last Christmas ago, so a long, long time. How does his hip-pouch look? I was aiming for that sun bleached look all post-apocalyptica textiles should feature.

Now for some 15mm goodness, though I will apologize right now in advance. My deepest sincerity for accidentally saving the following image in .JPG format. I'd not known the mistake myself until just now as I went to upload the image.

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Three Traveller adventurers clad in survival gear, the obligatory barbarian adventurer, and an assassin. I imagined these three adventurers were, rather, clad in survival garments and gear, which would also give me a good excuse for their red, yellow and blue colour schemes. This fits with the overall theme I wanted to present of company-supplied agents or surveyors, armed with military equipment, as I wanted to look into playing Star Frontiers with 15mm scale figures, if only because model vehicles and fliers are more affordable. Only the barbarian and the female adventurer have been completely painted, with the blue-suited adventurer only needing his alice pack and visor finished up. The assassin and the tactical vest-wearing fellow are only in base colours so far. The bases of all are unfinished (needs some foliage). I like the barbarian's reversible shirt and the blue adventurer's grey skeinsuit.

Run! It's got Tentacles!

Actually just today I finally got my hands on one of those damn Volturnian monstrosities that are, the Queequeg. I've been wanting one for some time now, and blam, there it is, and oh boy, oh boy! No spots of rot!

Unlike most monster-type figures out there, I was surprised to find that the damn thing was actually scaled to 25mm figures properly. I've been underwhelmed many times by such 'great' beasts. GW's Red Terror figure, for example, though don't get me wrong, I love it. It just doesn't look like it could show any space marine a gape of the serpent.

And last, but by all means not even remotely least, a small preview of some 'greens' of some armatures I'm bulking up. They're actually not green. I'm using that ProCreate stuff, and because of the aesthetic charm of greyscaled sculpting previews, I've made the image thusly so. I've got some sketches somewhere, but for the most part I'm just practicing forming tiny characters.

They might eventually be Heavy EVA salvaging-types

That's it for today, folks! I'll try to be more regular and improve my camera skills, maybe share some Star Frontiers and D&D home-brew and/or thoughts, or at least find something entertaining or interesting to talk about.

That backdrop is the inside of my second shirt.