Orcs and More

A few figures fresh off the painting table. Some old GW so-called "black orcs" - I think these are really tough orcs, sort of like uruk hai. Unfortunately, for some reason I only ever got around to buying the command group, so they have no more orcs or their ilk to command. I guess they'll have to settle for bossing around lesser orcs.

A few regular orc archers, an old purchase from Foundry.

And some sort of plague-ridden mangy dog-like creature from Reaper's Bones line (I think it could be a Pathfinder goblin dog, which are not canines but more like large carnivorous rat creatures), and a dungeon mimic from Otherworld Miniatures.

Back to the Beginning

Like Inigo Montoya and Fezzik I'm looking at going "back to the beginning". In this case it means I've been looking into Tunnels & Trolls, the rpg rules I started out with back in the mid to late 70s. The advantage they had over D&D was their simplicity and several solo "dungeons". A huge plus for those like me who lacked fellow gamers to play with. I have fuzzy but fond memories of Buffalo Castle and several other solo dungeons, and artwork by Liz Danforth, Carver, et al.

So I have been perusing the Lone Delver blog and have also downloaded free basic T&T rules made available by Flying Buffalo, some 'zines (notably, Trollszine) and solo dungeons/adventures and such from rpgnow. So much free content available and so many creative people involved in T&T! I rolled up a goblin and played the Goblin Lake solo dungeon included in the free rules. Although he was very dextrous luck wasn't with him. It was a fun re-intro though.

While browsing around on rpgnow I also came across a solo adventure called Lost City of the Dwarves. As a long-time fan of dwarves, from my early days of reading Tolkien, the solo adventure sounded like something I might be interested in. They have a free intro, called a Prologue, so I also grabbed that. I love the artwork in it. The artwork used in the Prologue is cool, it's the preliminary sketches, which I always find interesting and fun to look at. The story itself is a good intro to the premise of the adventure, the world in which it takes place, and the mechanics of the game. These are basically "choose your own adventure" solo dungeons, but the story and the art are very well done and captured my interest and imagination. I would definitely recommend the Prologue to anyone who is a fan of dwarves or Tolkien or fantasy. And you can't beat the price!