Alex Mitchell’s Inspirational Artwork

From a link on G+, I was propelled into the galleries of Alex Mitchell (aka genesischant on deviantART artist and animator (writer and artist for Space Ninja).  Mitchell does a lot of redesigning characters for other genres, such as a chambara Justice League (of which the Steel Man/Superman is pictured to the right).

He has also done 1930s versions of the JLA as vigilante gang busters, while the Secret Society (of supervillains) are all mob bosses.  The X-Men as Victorian-era spiritualist/occult based heroes and much much more.

So much inspiration here for superhero games, Legend of the Five Rings, steampunk, Victorian-era games and more.  Go take a look and see what takes your fancy.

Oh, and he even has a piece inspired from back when he played D&D.

Review – Kingdoms of Legend: Knights of France

IPG continues their hard work on building a coherent world for their Kingdom of Legends setting with Knights of France providing a good resource for knights and for an alternate history/fantastic vision of medieval France.  If your campaign has a place for both, this will be an extremely useful source book, however if it only uses one of the other, the material will be of more limited value.

Kingdoms of Legend: Knights of France is a 36-page PDF (33-pages if you remove the covers and OGL page) for the Pathfinder RPG written by Jason Rice and published by Interaction Point Games as part of their Kingdoms of Legend line.

Looking back on the Summer of 2012 (and May too)

Busy times, though not so much here on the Sea of Stars Journal, but a recap of these months and what was published here:

Articles:

Tuesday Magic Item – Death Gate Ring

The necrourgist flexed his hand of living bone, the silver and ivory ring clicking along his finger.  “To think it has come to this,” he sighed, looking over the assembled members of the Church of Light, their weapons shining with destructive radiance that carved through the animated dead of his outer guard.

He glanced about his workshop, some of the items here would be difficult to replace but not as difficult as escaping the divinity-powered judgement the Churchmembers would inflict upon him.  He sighed again, grabbing the nearest tome with his still living hand. 

One of the armored Church Warriors rushed him, he raised his living bone hand, channeling his will and magic though the ring.  Black-veined lightning lanced through the knight and lashed at those beyond, as his soul was torn free from his body, the Necrourgist followed it, stepping from his lost lair to a distant street, where all was quiet.  He looked around and nodded, this would do as a place to rebuild.

Death Gate Ring

These rings are usually made of intertwined ivory and silver, forged on bones of murdered victims, the interior is marked with tightly carved runes and magical symbols.  The ring always feels cold.

Short Pathfinder Reviews – Spells, Magic Items and more

A variety of short reviews of a variety (well 3) short products for Pathfinder.  Let us begin:

New Magic Item – Campaign Medal

Sergeant Lorvik stood proud as the Princess Elesana pinned the medal for bravery in service against the savage tribes of Koraloo on his

For Service.

chest.  Such an award was rare, especially among the lower ranks, but it was his third.

—

Lorvik parried the spear and counter thrust, piercing the tribesman through the heart.  He spun and barked a command to short up the right of the line.  From his left came a shout.  More tribesmen.  He touched his fist clenched around the hilt of his sword to his medals and felt the strength of the kingdom flow through him.

“Come on you dogs!  Let us drive these savages back and show them the steel of civilization!”  He took the lead and counter charged the advancing warriors.

Campaign Medal, Inspirational and Life Saving

These come in a variety of forms from highly decorative designs on colorful cloth to simple markers of carved stone or metal.  But part of what gives them their power is the public presentation of these markers of bravery and devotion.

GenCon 2012 Report II – Friday to Flight Home

After the success of Thursday, I was looking forward to Friday.  Up early for another 8am game, which was delayed as we had to wait for the room to be unlocked, but still had six people for the Otomo Estates adventure which was the introductory intrigue scenario.  They managed quite well with a tricky political situation ultimately achieving the goals set for them and even managing to get one of the characters a minor political post out of the deal.  (Onof the players sent me an email after the con and said that this adventure was one of the highlights of her GenCon!  Which made me feel very good.)

Then I had my only extended block of time to visit the exhibitors hall as my next game was not until 6pm.  I made it a point to go down each and every one of the aisles, so I could at least glance at everything there.  So many wonderful things, it was overwhelming but in a good way.  So much creativity and passion about our hobby was on display.  I caught up with Drew Baker and chatted a bit, Drew is a great guy and a wonderful artist so I always drop by to talk with him.  And broke down and purchased another piece of art, the charming young Athena to the right by Meredith Dillman along with a pendant from the same artist for Laura.  Art ended up being my biggest block of purchases this year.  Said hello to Adam Jury of Posthuman Studios.

GenCon 2012 Report I – Transit and Thursday

Got up at 4:15am to catch the MegaBus to downtown Atlanta, which was rather fun, then the MARTA to the Atlanta airport, not nearly as much fun.   Managed to catch a bit of sleep between the bus and plane catching a shuttle into the hotel, checked in, dropped off my bags and called in to find out where I needed to go to help with setup . . . and found that I was not needed as there were enough people helping already.  Unexpectedly, I was free until the AEG demo team dinner.

Back from GenCon!

Had a wonderful time.  Ran 6 out of 7 scheduled slots for a total of 34 wonderful players.  Will start posting my news and views from GenCon in the very near future (maybe starting today).  But let me say thank you to all of the people who played in my games, it was a great experience.  Overall, most everyone at the Con was really nice and I did not have a negative interaction over the course of the convention.  So, from that, I will generalize to “and a great time was had by all.”

Details to follow.

En Route to GenCon (and where to find me)

But the time this posts, I will be on my way to GenCon via bus, subway, airplane and whatever gets me from the Indianapolis airport to the hotel.  It will be a longish day.

If you want to find me there, my schedule is: