Saturday, March 30, 2013

Tile This!

I have made some tiles. Just one or two. Not sure where this is going, but I suspect it will end in marble and stone. Decided to try and cover a lot of the basic shapes used in standard tile/brick/stone flooring in one mass grid. added a few oddballs for fun.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Wilds - Yow!

A quick fight with a giant cat!

Start Date: July 2, Year of the Badger, noonish
Start Status: Yowl!
Start Location: Some cave somewhere

The Turn

[Round One] - Enemy initiative

Grit seems a bit disoriented by the creature's sudden appearance at his back. He turns and tries to dodge, but the narrow passage and awkward footing make it difficult. The cat, Grit can see it's definitely some sort of giant cat, lashes out again with claws and fangs. [hit with claw and fangs for 2 + 1 HP]

The dwarf finally gets settled and swings at the creature with his sword, slashing the creature across the shoulder. [hit for 6 HP]. The thing yowls and snarls, saliva dripping from its fangs.

Meanwhile Raúguey has gotten behind the thing, and takes a swing with his shiny new sword. The creature hears or senses the swing and dodges, but not completely. [hit for 4 HP]

Locky is feeling lucky, he steps into the room, drops his lantern on a boulder, and ducks in beside Raúguey, driving the tip of his thin-bladed sword into the creature's side. [hit for 3 HP] It yowls again, and whirls to face its new foes!

Outside, there's a jam at the cave entrance as Maro, Urúvion and Rawon try and shuffle past each other. Finally Maro ends up in front, with Rawon all the way at the back. Unfortunately it's just too crowded for anyone else to close with the beast. Everyone else edges closer, but settle for watching the exterior for additional foes.

[Round Two] - Enemy initiative.

The creature yowls again and leaps forward, slamming into Grit! Both Raúguey and Locky take swings at the retreating creature's back, but both miss. The dwarf tries to hold his ground but the creature scrambles past, then spins with uncanny speed in the narrow passage, and lashes out once again. [hit with claw for 2 HP]. Grit stabs at the thing with his sword, but misses completely.

Raúguey and Locky move up to support Grit, but it's simply too narrow for more than one combatant. "This thing is S-M-R-T smart!" declares Raúguey.

Maro shifts a bit and sees a gap in the line. He fires a bolt from his crossbow and it buries itself the creature's chest! [hit for 4 HP] With a final yowl the creature collapses and lies twitching on the ground.

Panting, Grit takes a few steps back to allow the others room. He's bleeding from several deep claw marks and a couple nasty punctures. Locky grabs his lantern and moves into the next room with Raúguey and Maro. Urúvion moves in and joins the others in the next cave-space. Rawon pulls out a flask and takes a nip as he mutters "Stupid cat."

The thing is definitely dead, and Urúvion says it's a giant lynx. Faint sounds from the next chamber draw Maro forward, and he slips through the rough opening. "There's more back here!" he calls. The others, well the others that fit, join him in the inner chamber. It's small, no more than ten or fifteen feet across. Maro gestures at the back corner, where a pair of lynx-kits crouch, green eyes locked on Maro, lips curled back from tiny but sharp fangs.

Rawon pulls himself together and ducks inside with Durego. He checks the upper area, just a narrow ledge, and then keeps watch while Durego tends Grit's wounds.

OOC: Big cat is about six feet long. The kits are about two feet long, still in the fuzzy kitten phase, but they have some nasty looking fangs and claws. They seem content to stay where they are, for now.

End Date: July 2, Year of the Badger, noonish
End Status: Yowch!
End Location: Some cave somewhere

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

More Doors

Here's another round of scribbles from my latest project, a large crypt complex. This is a door treatment I've been working on. Not sure I'm happy with it yet.
The hardware layout on this set makes sense for the door swings, and they're properly aligned to doorframes. They probably need some sort of stop/frame marker opposite the pull-ring. Or maybe they need to be a little wider and inset into the jamb...

Anyhow, I think these work better than the previous round (below).

The Wilds - Just in Cave


A short turn this round. With the PCs deciding to take a break from the downpour they find themselves in, they head into the cave for a short break. As they soon find out, there's a bit more to it than that...

Monday, March 25, 2013

Tiled Floor Tutorial using Inkscape and Gimp

Over on G+ I was asked how I created the tile floor I showed in my tile grunge tutorial. Here's the basic method I used, in what I hope is a useful format. First, here's what we're shooting for:
Let's begin, shall we?

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Tile Grunge in Gimp Tutorial

I've been doing a bunch of work with floor tiles this weekend, and stumbled across a pretty quick and easy way to add some nice grout grunge to floor tiles using the standard filters available in Gimp. Here you go!

Friday, March 22, 2013

The Tombs - V2

Here's another look at my current mapping project, The Tombs (previous round here). After exporting the first version to Gimp and doing some work on the floors, walls and doors, I found myself unhappy with some of the corridor layouts relative to the grid. This version is reworked to align some corridors and clean up some doorways. Once again, this is a poor quality, low-resolution Inkscape export with a texture slapped into the background. It's nowhere near done.
You might note a few additional details here, like a whole bunch of caskets and coffins. I decided a project based in a tomb needed to show these, so I'll be messing about with how to make them interesting without them turning to mush. I've also added a few markers for statues and altars, but I'm not sure how I'll handle those. The red areas will be raised platforms, the pink will be stairs.