Several Photographers May Have Been Eaten Getting This Group Photo

From a gaming perspective, 2023 was a pretty darned good year for me. The Deep and the Dark was published, I ran a few fun games, and I got a lot of painting done.

The one thing I really wanted to do in the last year that didn’t get done was to get my Tomb of Annihilation campaign off the ground. So that will be high on the list for 2024. I miss having a weekly game and if this adventure path plays half as well as it reads, we should be in for a great time.

In the coming year I hope to be working on a follow-up to The Deep and the Dark that focuses more on Aslan space. I’ve got a few idea kicking around that I’m pretty excited about, so we’ll see.

Most of the miniatures in my priority pile have been painted. I’ve got a few Reaper giants left that I’d like to do along with a couple of nice Otherworld figures, and then after that I’m not sure. I have a ton of kobolds that I’d like to do, but I already have a bunch. It might be nice to do some Traveller starships, though probably not at the 1:270 scale. Having a few tactical scale models of common ship types might be helpful as visual aids.

Everest Ascended

A little over six years ago I received my rewards for the Reaper Bones III Kickstarter, including the enormous Ma’al Drakar the Dragon Tyrant. That Kickstarter had a bumper crop of great models, including several Gargantuan and Colossal figures that honestly broke me. I worked away on the smaller miniatures, but Ma’al Drakar and the rest of the titanic models languished in my basement as my painting backlog grew and grew.

Finally, last March I got myself an airbrush in one last, desperate attempt to break through the logjam. And the airbrush really did the trick—I’m still very much a beginner, but for priming and putting down base coats on large miniatures it really can’t be beat and has allowed me to put a massive dent in that logjam. (Just in time for the haul from the Reaper Bones 6 Kickstarter to land!)

Armed with the airbrush I was able to complete Ma’al Drakar over the course of several weeks. Because the work was intermittent I couldn’t say how many total hours that represented, but it was a significant time investment. This was easily the largest model I’ve ever worked on, though it probably wasn’t the most technically challenging—that honor probably goes to Shub-Niggurath and all those infernal goat eyes.

Obviously, I wanted to paint this model up as Tiamat so I looked at lots of Dungeons & Dragons reference art, particularly from Tyranny of Dragons. I assembled the model using poster-tack for priming and base coating, then disassembled everything to more easily work on individual components. The wings and the heads were probably the only components that benefited from this approach: everything else probably could have been permanently assembled right from jump.

I primed the model using Army Painter Uniform Gray from a spray can and then applied a zenithal undercoat. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have skipped the primer and just moved right to the undercoat, but old habits die hard.

At this point I assembled the main body, limbs, tail, and neck sections with superglue. In general, the pieces fit well with relatively few gaps and although the model was made with the original Bones material, I didn't notice a lot of sagging or drooping and I think this is because Julie Guthrie did an excellent job sculpting a balanced, well-supported piece. I used some Vallejo plastic putty for the gaps but was not very happy with the results.

I then put down a base coat of Reaper MSP Red Brick on the body, limbs, wings, and tail, followed by washes of Army Painter Strong Tone. The Red Brick had an alarmingly purplish look when first laid down, but this dissipated after I added highlights of Deep Red and then further highlights of Blood Red. I then blocked out the claws and tail spines with brown, highlighted with yellows and gray.

I then worked on the scales of the necks and heads with a base coat, wash, and then highlights. The washes really helped knock down the brightness of the chromatic colors and helped tie the different pieces together.

I did the eyes and teeth and then attached all the remaining pieces with superglue. The cleanup steps probably took as much time as all the rest of the painting, as there were lots of little details and adjustments to add.

All-in-all, it’s a pretty impressive piece to see in person if only because of the size, but Julie Guthrie really outdid herself with this design. I only wish I had used a much lighter tone on the wings: a leathery, tannish base would have made a better contrast and would have allowed the addition of some veining.

I am fairly pleased with the number of models I was able to complete in 2024. I mostly cleared everything in the priority pile, and even allowed myself to pick up a few new additions for the queue.

The Deep and the Dark

So the big project I started last year and turned in earlier this year is finally out: The Deep and the Dark, a sourcebook for Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller RPG. The Deep and the Dark covers Reaver’s Deep and Dark Nebula sectors, a vibrant, messy, and strange area at the intersection of the Third Imperium, Aslan Hierate, and the Solomani Confederation.

I’m very happy with how this book turned out, but it has been a long, strange trip. Almost fifteen years ago an idle search for low tech worlds on the edge of the Imperium gradually morphed into a fascination with this region of Charted Space—and eventually, my very first RPG lead credit. I am an incredibly slow writer so this book was a labor of love, but I feel like I learned a lot and can finally check off a long-standing life goal.

My manuscript was so overstuffed that I had no room for any sort of dedication, but I am indebted to many, many others, starting with the incredibly prolific Keith brothers from Traveller’s Golden Age: J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith. Along with Loren Wiseman they introduced the Aslan in Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society 7 (1981). This information was greatly expanded in Traveller Alien Module 1: Aslan (1984), which is credited to J. Andrew Keith, John Harshman, and Marc Miller. I am continually astonished that these authors were able to convey so much complexity and offer up so many gaming possibilities in just 40 short pages. All the fundamentals of the Aslan and their Hierate are right there in this little Alien Module.

The Keith Brothers also developed Reaver’s Deep sector through a series of supplements, adventures, and magazine articles published by GDW, Gamelords, FASA, and Marischal Adventures, among others. Their work on the Deep demonstrates their innate understanding of what makes for a great sandbox setting: the Deep is a wild, backward area caught between three great powers, full of mysteries, danger, and interesting places to explore. 

It’s also structured to give maximum agency to the players. The vast Third Imperium with its sector-spanning government, megacorporations, giant capital ships and megafreighters, black globes and TL15 goods can make player characters seem puny and insignificant. The Deep, in contrast, takes everything good about the Imperium and strips it down, shrinks it, and makes it more approachable for a PC. It’s a lower-tech, small ship environment that still has wild, lawless areas. The Principality of Caledon is very much a small Imperium with its own version of the familiar Army, Navy, and Scouts services.

One of the toughest tasks in working on this book was tracking down all of the various references on this sector, which are scattered over dozens of sources ranging from GDW’s Double Adventure 6: Night of Conquest (1982) to small press chapbooks and fanzines. But for the Keith brothers, it was almost always worth it: they were adventure-generating machines.

Another Classic Traveller alien module, AM 6 - Solomani (1986) by Marc Miller and John Harshman has also been a vital resource. Just as the Aslan module, Solomani does an incredible amount of worldbuilding in just 48 pages. It also manages to effectively invert the hoary sci-fi chestnut of the heroic Terran battling against a universe of hostile aliens.

One of my favorite books from the MegaTraveller era was DGP’s Solomani and Aslan: The Rimward Races (1991) by Peter G. Celella and James Holden, which was highly influential on my own Magyar campaign. They did a great job of building on top of the foundations laid by the CT Aslan and Solomani alien modules. Working with the limited data from Atlas of the Imperium (1984), Celella and Holden carefully considered how the unusual astrography of Dark Nebula would have shaped the development of the sector, and used these insights to fill in many details of the setting timeline. S&A also has many evocative line drawings of Aslan worlds by Michael Vilardi, which continue to inform my personal imagining of Aslan art and architecture.

Although I have never been a huge fan of GURPS the game system, I have always loved GURPS supplements for the superb standards of writing and editing, as well as the dedication to extensive playtesting. The extra effort usually pays off: most GURPS books are tightly written and full of gamable material even for referees using completely different systems. But my favorite part is how GURPS books thoughtfully consider the social and structural implications of various game settings.

These insights are particularly useful when it comes to the alien species of Charted Space. The GURPS Alien Races books detail how these alien cultures would actually work, and thus are a great help for players and referees trying to understand what it might be like to live in the Aslan Hierate. GURPS Traveller: Alien Races 2 (1999) includes a characteristically excellent section on the Aslan written by Andy Slack.

Slack has been enormously influential on me personally: his old White Dwarf articles on Traveller were probably my first contact with the game, and I still pull out “Backdrop of Stars” from WD 24 (Apr/May 1981) from time to time. Slack recognized the highly gamable potential of the Dark Nebula boardgame, which has some of the most evocative world names of any GDW setting. I tried to incorporate as much of this into my own history of the Dark Nebula. His GURPS work is enormously helpful for anyone trying to understand what life on an Aslan world would really be like. In a similar vein, Jon F. Zeigler’s GT Rim of Fire: The Solomani Rim Sourcebook (2000) is an outstanding resource for anyone trying to understand life inside the Solomani Confederation.

I am also indebted to Joshua Bell, who created and runs the magisterial Traveller Map website, which I’ve often described as one of fandom’s greatest contributions to any RPG. Not only is his site incredibly fun to play with, it is an invaluable reference for anyone doing research on Charted Space. If Traveller Map had existed in 2009, my search for low tech human worlds on the edge of Imperial space would have taken a couple of hours instead of weeks and months of poring over old, buggy sector data files. At Joshua’s encouragement, I fleshed out the rimward sectors of Canopus, Aldebaran, Neworld, and Langere—which became important prep for working with Reaver’s Deep and Dark Nebula.

I need to thank the ever-patient Matt Sprange of Mongoose Publishing, who was willing to take a chance and assign a big book to an unknown and untested writer. The entire experience was extremely rewarding.

Finally I am thankful for my large group of players, whose characters crew the IMV Starjammer—a Type U armed packet ship working Magyar and Dark Nebula sectors. I know they would often rather play Dungeons and Dragons and so I greatly appreciate their indulgence when I’d rather run Traveller. There definitely would not be a Deep and the Dark without these crazy guys.

Speaking of which, since I tried to cram so much stuff into that book, a lot of material ended up on the cutting room floor. I’m developing a proposal to incorporate some of that work into a new book. Working title: Clans of the Aslan. Fingers crossed!

Griffon and Wyvern

Griffons and wyverns, classic heraldic monsters, have been staples of Dungeons & Dragons from the very beginning, being first mentioned together in Chainmail (1971), where they are treated like Rocs. Both of these Reaper Bones miniatures, sculpted by Julie Guthrie, were part of the core set of the Bones 4 Kickstarter. Even though I didn’t have a pressing need for either miniature, they looked so darned good they both steadily rose to the top of my priority pile.

In OD&D (1974), griffons are described as 

the most prized of steeds, for they are swift, loyal, and fierce. However, they are fond of horse flesh above all other foods, so the two creatures cannot be mixed …. In their wild state Griffons will attack anyone nearby with little provocation, particularly if their lair is nearby.

(I had forgotten that bit about griffons and horses.) The AD&D 1e Monster Manual (1977) repeats the same information, and includes additional details on capturing and training young griffons. “Fledglings sell for 5,000 gold pieces, eggs for 2,000, on the open market.” The MM also mentions that grey elves use griffons as guards and mounts, while storm giants “dwelling on cloud islands or mountain peaks” may have 1-4 griffons.

The 1e Dungeon Master’s Guide has an entire section on “Flying Mounts” which largely seems written to throw cold water on the whole idea of PCs getting their own griffon mounts, emphasizing their “nasty and bad-tempered” natures: “Imagine the confusing tumult of giant wings, the rush of air, the sudden changes in altitude, and you will realize why an inexperienced rider absolutely cannot handle a flying mount.” That actually sounds like a really fun session to me!

The Julie Guthrie griffon is a fantastically dynamic figure that looks like it could spring off its base and soar into the air. It reminds me very strongly of an old John D. Batten illustration of “Jack With His Invisible Coat,” from English Fairy Tales (1902). The illustration shows two fierce griffons guarding the winding road to a giant’s castle.

To prepare for this miniature I looked at lots of references for golden eagles. I skipped priming and went straight to the airbrush for a zenithal undercoat of Reaper Pure Black and Pure White.

I continue to experiment with using the Army Painter Quickshade line, particularly with figures that have lots of fine detail, such as eagle feathers.  It took multiple rounds of Quickshade layers followed by dry brushing to get this griffon where I wanted it.

Wyverns are described in OD&D as

relatives of Dragons, but they are smaller and have but two legs. A Wyvern hasn’t the fearsome breath of a true Dragon, but they are equipped with a poisonous sting in their tail and poison enough to use it repeatedly.

Similar information is contained in the 1e MM. I had it in my head that wyvern poison was one of the more potent in the game, but I don’t see in the 1e MM where wyvern poison is any more virulent than medusa, giant spider, or purple worm poison. Wyvern poison is certainly one of the worst in 3e, doing 2d6 Con intial damage and 2d6 Con secondary damage.

The Guthrie wyvern, like the griffon, has a very dynamic pose, its head cocked at the end of its sinuous, snaky neck. I primarily relied on the illustration in the 5e Monster Manual (2014) for a reference, which has a wyvern with a muted, pale red coloration. After putting down a zenithal undercoat I then put a base coat of Reaper Yellowed Bone. I then used several layers of Army Painter Quickshade to add a red tone to the figure. Overall, I was happy that I was able to approximate the colors in the illustration from the 5e MM without slipping into a hot pink.

Wyverns and Griffons in the Great Dungeon

Both of these monsters are not uncommon in the wild interior of the North. Wyverns and griffons both nest in the Majestic Mountains, and can be found in the cloud islands that periodically drift over the region. Wyverns are also found in the deepest, trackless forests of the North.