Make Way For The Mino!

The second installment of the Badderlands series has arrived!

B1 Hobgobble's Eve

Are you ready for wicked adventure?

After four months of rigorous playtesting, the first adventure module is launched: Hobgobble's Eve! As this is an intro to the WEGS Badderlands series, it's also lovingly called B1. This module is jam-packed with some great Old Skool art and tons of hobgoblins (like every intro adventure should be). To call it an intro is a little misleading though; it's going to be quite challenging for new players to "beat". There are only three chapters in the adventure, each one gets progressively harder. The module also contains its fair share of wacky WEGS lingo, and I'm hoping the casual reader will have their curiousity peaked by how different the Wickedly Errant Game System is from other sword-n-sorcery game systems.

Yar?

With the final con of the year hitting this weekend (MACE, North Carolina), it'll be time to get back into the swing of things with the 2009 product offerings. As most of ya know, WEGS 202 Pirates of Penzantium was shelved over the summer due to the sheer bulk of con-hopping we did; there just wasn't enough time to get it all together for a GenCon release. So, that's something to look forward to next year! Also in the works is WEGS 101 House Rules!; a sequel to Old Skool that's gonna include all the tips/tricks/traps that the Wegshogs having been throwing down at conventions these last phew years... Rumor has it that it's gonna include the rules for Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom, too (insert the sound of a dozen or so WEGS players going wild over this news...). In the meantime, here's some POP art to keep you occupoddo...

Got Hot?

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the cucina... A bounty of hot peppers from the gardens of El Willy. Assortment of habaneros, cayenne, peanut chiles, hinkelhatz (chicken hearts) and Czech black (which are actually red). This is what I do when I'm not rolling bones. Speaking of which, the fall con season begins. Three cons on the hit list: Con on the Cob (Akron), Ubercon (NJ) and MACE (North Carolina).

GenCon08: Signage at Origins

This is a photo of the Origins booth, the test-run booth as it were (or was...). Not that we weren't prepared for Origins, but it was our first logistical con; we never did this before. You can prepare all you want up front, but until you hit the ground running at the actual convention site, you have no idea what to expect. Heck, yeah, we were nervous about Origins, but it was the same type of nervous actors/directors get the week before opening night. One thing you can notice between this pic and the one below is that, aside from one more Wegshog on our side of the demo table, the WEGS sign in the background is rippled. This was due to the fact that the sign was hung on hooks from the curtain rods at the back of the booth. Not the optimal way to hang a sign, but lots of folks do it. The ripple effect was remedied at GenCon as the pvc standing unit was added and fixed the problem completely. Small, but exciting, victories...

GenCon 08: Signage

Once you commit to getting a booth, you gotta get a sign that let's folks know who you are. Pre-Origins, we only had small 2x4 foot WEGS signs which would not fill the 10x10 booth area very effectively. So, $200 later, I went to print with a 4x6 banner (shown here). And once you have a banner, you have to figure out a way to hang it. Many vendors use pvc pipe for this purpose. I followed suit; it took me the better part of a weekend to cut/assemble/spray paint the frame (about $50 in materials). I designed it so it is free standing, with the use of two picnic table umbrella stands (the ones that anchor the umbrella pole under the table). Found the perfect type at Sports Authority ($15 each), but the stands are flippin' heavy! Sue topped off the whole assembly with two burning braziers (using tissue paper for the fire effect). We framed the signage with copper pots and WEGS 101 Book-n-Card combos. (Yeah, that's me and Fwill running a demo.)

Of Mice & Minion Masters...

Before...
Right out of the 1954 movie, "Them!". I had high hopes for these two minions. Level 7 Giant Fire Ants with a nasty afterburn from their bites (i think it was D10 Wounds at the Spante for the next four innings). They marched confidently into battle, as ants often do...
After...

And they were quickly dispatched by the Arks, who showed them who rules the checkered mat!

Best laid plans...

Shroedinger's Cold Roll...

So does the cat live or die (or simply implode)?

Find out here

Arks In Action!

Another scene from WittCon

From Dusk 'Til Dead

(j. benton, photographer)

"What we have here is a sit-cheee-ay-tion, laddies!"

Foreground-Ethercreepers (Level 5 as per the five purple chips under each) closing in on a group of Arks who seem to be surrounding their Sage.

Center: The Arks! Sage (pink chip) who has a spell ready to blast (pink pawn); Mage with two red chips under (second red chip is a spell marker); Ranger (green chip) who has Sure Shot on (green marker); Trickster (yellow chip); Warrior (orange chip).

Background: Three 88 Enchanted Warriors (each with 8 orange chips). The two yellow chips represented some special move I think... Way in the back, sitting on a mighty stack of pink is the Level 88 Sage who was leading the warriors to the attack.

That's WEGS in multi-color, folks!

WEGS @ WittCon '08
From Dusk 'Til Dead
(photo by j. benton)

Lots o' rats, zombies, ether creepers, spoint frogs (on copper pot).
A Level 88 Dark Mage can be seen on that mighty stack of red chips.
Lower right is a Goblin Mage with Sense Magic up (red marker).
Level 88 Dark Mage is also about to blast a spell...

An Early Depiction of WEGS in Rome?

Suffering the price for bad Minion Mastering...

Professer Wick Explains...

...the difference between a Chainsword and a Boomstick!

(Wittcon 2008, J Benton, Photographer)

Flashback: Yawlwyrd

For some reason, this story popped into my head last night. It was triggered by the fact I'm working on some of the game scenarios for the Cold Wars con in March. Generally, we end cons with a Sunday WEGS game of epic proportions (3+ hour session with 8+ players). We call these games Yawls, and the scenario title is some derivation of that root: The Yawlwyrd (Ubercon 2005) was the first. The Yawlamo was next, and one we've used as our staple con-closer. My new one is called Escape From Yawlcatraz (a piratey prison-break scenario). The Yawls came from the marriage of two disjointed things. The first being that it is based on the Icelandic All-thing, an enourmous meeting of chieftains, for my purpose key players. The second thing was an elevator ride I experienced at GenCon 2005, Indianapolis. In the elevator were two game geeks decked out in their fantasy armour, two non-gamer NASCAR types (father and son), and me and Sue (who showed no signs of our geekage). As soon as the two knights of the dinner table left the elevator, the two Nascar guys started cracking up to each other. They turned to us and said something like, "Can you believe those guys?!?" I said, "Yup. We're gamers. We're here for the convention, too. We just don't dress up for it." The father chuckled and replied, "Well, y'all weird!" Thus, the Yawlwyrd was born. It's a light-hearted nod to the wackiness of this hobby and the diehard commitment to have fun until the last possible moment.

WEGS AT UBERCON!

WEGS 101 Old Skool Cover...

Here's the front cover, folks!

And the system ain't half-bad either...

The cover art and interior illustrations are by Kennon James - an amazing artist with a knack for nailing the old skool spirit. Wait until you see some of his interiors - there's this one spread for "The Five Strengths" that just blows me away. Lots of cool art awaits! Visit the man who drew it all at his blog:

http://kennonjames.blogspot.com/

or

http://www.kennonjames.com/

He'll also be at GenCon, pay him a vist on Artists Row. He rocks!

The Players Assembled...

A Saturday Game at Historicon

Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom

A total of nine players I believe, encountering their first onslaught of minions (all three of 'em). Various elements of WEGS can be seen - poker chips, playing cards, skill cards, Ark kards, miniatures, battlemat, pencils, dice and lots of arms obviously...

The game was packed and the action was non-stop (after the players managed to eliminate the first three minions...).

Photo courtesy of littleleadheroes.com

Yawlamoooooo!

Historicon was super for me and the Wegshogs this past weekend. Talk about non-stop table action! All games were played at or over capacity. System ran full throttle. The Yawlamoo ended up being a great scenario that kept us on our hooves the entire time... This is another sure fire crowd pleaser now! The Alamo meets Helms Deep with carnivorous cows cluttering the field of battle... More details to follow, but this pic should sum it up for now!

And, yeah, we had the worst painted miniatures in the place...

Mushpot Amongst The Giants...

Since I posted on Mushpot yesterday, thought I'd follow up with a pic today. Here he is in all his glory amongst the literary giants of our time (Hemingway, Melville, Hawthorne, Python, Huxley). Notice the small Dwarf Lord game piece at his feet.

I don't know too much about this strange statuette. Found it at a garage sale a couple of years ago. Weird thing is that I stumbled upon a piece of art that he was based on. Seems he is a Bauer troll.

http://runeberg.org/jbauer/

Mushpot can be seen in the top pic (he's the giant on the right). There's something very Tolkien about Bauer (or vice versa). I think my next quest will be to find statuettes of the other trolls in the picture.

They gotta exist, right?

The Lyrd Of The Roses...

Rocinante...

In all her glory...