My Starfinder Society Minis and Artwork

Zefira Lachlan (L) and Boomer (R)

Last month, I shared some updates to my artwork and LEGO minis for my Pathfinder Society characters, and this time I will present my Starfinder Society character's minis. I have only drawn portraits for two of these SFS PCs, so will include those here rather than splitting them off into a separate post as I did for my PFS artwork. The capsule descriptions below are roughly in the order that I started playing these characters.

Zefira Lachlan (current)

Zefira Lachlan is a daredevil operative with the ace pilot theme. She was the first SFS character I ever played, and is still the highest-level one (10th). She is human, a choice that I made entirely because she was an attempt to recreate my Serenity RPG pilot character in a new system. This Zefira's story has unfolded very differently in a universe that features easy FTL travel, widespread magic use, and hundreds of sentient alien species! She is still a hotshot pilot and a gambler, but has diversified into mastering other forms of movement, high-tech hacking and repair skills, and first contact encounters. 

Zefira started out with the lightest possible armor, so the first minis I built for her used Catwoman's costume and similar bodysuits. (The version at the top of this page uses the Jewel Thief from Minifigures Series 15.) Jessica Alba's look in Dark Angel was my photo reference for both Zefiras, so I gave her a light caramel head and long black hair. She has since upgraded to much better armor (though still light and maneuverable), and I've added a helmet now that she has a jetpack (the latter is Jango Fetts's, from the Star Wars theme). Her current body armor belongs to Proxima Midnight, from the Marvel Avengers line. In a recent column, I briefly complained about the tendency of female minifigures to be cartoonishly sexualized, but this armor's print job does a decent job of making her gender apparent without going overboard--precisely the balance I wanted for Zefira.

Boomer

B-M-R Mk II, known as "Boomer" among their fellow Starfinders, is a nonbinary android technomancer with the scholar theme. When not conducting astronomical surveys or performing repairs and maintenance on Society equipment, they work as a lawyer representing the Society's interests (and those of other androids). They have blue hair with some silver streaks, and some of the glowing blue circuits on their face form runes that serve as their spell cache. (This coloring might have been inspired by her faction leader, who is also a blue-haired android, but if so it wasn't deliberate--I only became truly familiar with Historia-7 much later, once I started GMing for SFS.)

I chose the Galaxy Patrol body (Minifigures Series 7; see the top of this page) because the dark blue with silver accents complemented Boomer's own coloring, and the torso has a tiny "WIZ" printed on its chest. The mini has the Cyborg's head and hair (Series 16), and a neck bracket that holds a 1x1 tile from a microscale Star Wars snowspeeder to suggest the jump jets installed in their suit.

Voran Eclipse

Voran Eclipse is a copaxi, an alien race whose individual members are each composed of a coral-like colonial organism. Because of this, Voran prefers "they" pronouns, but unlike with Boomer, the plural "they" is implied. They are a solarian with the xenoseeker theme, and manifest a solar weapon in the shape of a jagged blade of violet energy, which I've represented by a trans-blue and purple lightning bolt (Star Wars and other themes). Voran's body is a Berserker (one of Hela's minions; Marvel) with slightly spiky Ninjago shoulder plates added. Copaxi do not have faces, per se, so this alien's lightly textured head is turned backwards, with its fangs covered by Maleficent's headdress (Disney Minifigures). This last piece provides the distinctive antlers possessed by all copaxi. Since this picture was taken, Voran has started using a riot shield, for which I use a trans-cyan oval shield (like Qimok's, below) for a science fiction look. Voran actually wears heavy armor, but I prefer to emphasize their copaxi features for their mini.

Copaxi were originally made available for play through a boon earned from playing the scenario that introduced them, but three seasons later, this race is now available for play without a boon. I also earned the race boon for my skittermander Qimok (see below) before that race was made freely available to all. Tekeli-li and Euphemia (also below) belong to races that still require boons, either earned by playing certain scenarios (as I did) or purchased with Achievement Points.

Toknomonicon

Toknomonicon is a gnome envoy with the icon theme. He is a famous musician who uses his celebrity to help polish the Starfinder Society's image, and in return his missions inspire new compositions. As both a feychild gnome and a lay devotee of Shelyn and Arshea, Tokno prefers flamboyant clothing, decorated with feathers and sashes in many colors. He also dyes his hair to match. His mini's orange torso is from a LEGO Universe astronaut; the starburst makes a decent substitute for the Starfinder Society's compass rose. His headpiece is a version of Wyldstyle's striped hair with attached goggles (The LEGO Movie).

Toknomonicon and Tune-Bot 2000

I made Tokno a musician largely because of the "Toon-Bot 2000" boon, which gives him a robot that plays musical accompaniment. It's a largely silly but colorful boon, so despite the Tune-Bot having no stat block, I built one by adding transparent 1x1 pyramids to a boom box. A 1x1 cylinder atop a 2x2 radar dish makes it appear to hover.

Tokno on Wanda

Wanda (from the back)

On a recent adventure, Tokno successfully used his envoy abilities to befriend an alien animal used as a guard beast by the cruel jinsul, while traveling with another Starfinder who had an animal companion mount. This experience inspired him to acquire a companion of his own (and me to look up and learn the animal companion rules). Wanda is a wolliped, a large furry beast with eight legs, four eyes, and large tusks. She is a brick-built model, scaled to fit a 2" x 2" (6 x 6 studs) base. She has a space on her back for Tokno to sit, and a slope brick to suggest a saddle, but I was unable to build a deep recess like a riding animal minifigure would have. (Fortunately, Tokno has short legs!)

Tekeli-li

Tekeli-li is a kiirinta, a small moth-like fey species. He is a star shaman mystic and priest of Desna who tends to a small flock of her worshipers on Absalom Station. (The new "pretty space moth" portrait of Desna in Galactic Magic just makes this choice of god even more perfect for him!) Tekeli-li's head is from one of the insectoid aliens from the Galaxy Squad theme; his torso is from the Alien Trooper (Minifigures Series 13) and his wings are Butterfly Girl's (Series 17). His name's origin is explained here.

Qimok

Qimok is a skittermander soldier with the armor storm fighting style and the gladiator theme. He was trained as a gladiator, but his species' compulsion to help others led him to find work with the Starfinders as protection for the less durable members of a mission's team. Qimok's mini is built around the torso and back assembly from an Outrider alien (Marvel Avengers). This gives him the six arms of a skittermander, though the placement precludes putting second hands on his doshko (a spiked polearm) and laser rifle. He holds a shield in one hand, leaving his sixth hand free to grab, punch, or help, as needed. (Sadly, I forget the source of the head, as I bought it as an individual part, but I believe it is a Ninjago monster. The toothy grin seemed right for a skittermander.)

Euphemia Lasro

Euphemia Lasro is a pahtra, a feline humanoid species. She is an explorer operative and has the spacefarer theme, so is eager to explore new planets and systems for the Society, and is trained to survive in the wilderness. Euphemia was originally inspired by Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet, and I use some 3D artwork of that character for her token in online SFS games. I've only very recently started playing her, so had not built a mini for her until I was preparing for this column. My collection lacked a satisfactory match to Amelia's uniform (despite owning numerous Pirates, Armada, and Pirates of the Caribbean minifigs), but Zori Bliss's body (Star Wars) provided female light armor with enough gold accents to give a similar effect. I added epaulets as a final military touch. Her head is a Lion Tribe character (Legends of Chima) and her hair is a werewolf's (Minifigures Series 4). The rifle is a common Star Wars weapon.

The last three characters here are new, and have not yet debuted in Society play. They are in the wings for when I need to start playing a new 1st-level character, once Tekeli-li, Qimok, and Euphemia (all currently 2nd level) advance out of the lowest subtier. Because of this, their minis, like Euphemia's, are mere days old at the time of this writing.

(L to R): Glaukos, Z'Kar, Talgoth

Glaukos is a stellifera, a psychic cuttlefish-like species who can create a "hydrobody" around themselves for both protection and to allow them to use larger species' equipment (including armor and weapons). Glaukos is a mechanic with an experimental armor prototype and the sensate theme. I will probably give him the phrenic adept archetype at 2nd level, to enhance his race's inborn psychic abilities--which will make him my first Starfinder PC (for Society or not) with an archetype. His bulky space armor (a combination of the Toy Robot, Minifigures Series 6, and Space Miner, Series 12) is topped by a squid-like Alien Trooper head (Series 13), in an attempt to suggest that the Diminutive stellifera is occupying the "head" of a hydrobody wearing the armor. He wields a flame pistol, so I attached the hose from Hazmat Guy's sprayer (Series 4) to the stud on the back of his armor.

Z'Kar is a vesk vanguard. She has the stormrunner theme, so most of her skills are devoted to surviving the harsh climate of her home planet. Her entropic strike class feature makes a manufactured melee weapon less mandatory, so she spent most of her starting credits on the best (light) armor a 1st-level character could afford. She carries a cheap pistol, a few tools, and not much else. As a cave vesk, Z'Kar has pale scales, so I've used a white-skinned Ninjago pirate's head; the printed mask and the helmet help hide the fact that I don't have any better parts for a near-albino reptilian character. Her body is Falcon's (Marvel Avengers), and the "power blast" piece used to suggest her entropic strike's energy is Frozone's (Disney Minifigures, Series 2).

I created Talgoth as an exercise in building a PC with the new precog class in Galactic Magic. He is a half-orc with the cultist theme, hailing from the drow homeworld of Apostae, where he was raised by a blasphemous cult that attempted to sacrifice him to their patron. He should have died then, but instead had visions of the cult's god awakening, and manifested precog powers that allowed him to escape. He now tries to stay far, far away from the drow, and seeks an answer to how the doom he foresaw can be averted. For now, the Starfinder Society seems as good a place as any to do both. As a starting character whose most noteworthy abilities are ephemeral powers, his mini is very simple: light space armor (I forget the theme this torso is from), a LOTR orc head and hair, a hunting rifle, and a knife.

(Previous "Let Me Tell You About My Character..." columns are indexed here.)

Pathfinder Society Minis and Artwork Update

A few years ago now, I shared the portraits I'd drawn of my Pathfinder Society characters, along with capsule bios of each one. A year later, I shared photos of the LEGO minis I'd made for those characters, with a few new characters who had debuted since that previous post. I plan to do a similar article about my Starfinder Society characters sometime soon, but for now, I'm going to update two of those PFS First Edition PCs, then introduce the handful of PFS Second Edition characters I've created so far.

First Edition Pathfinder Updates

Very few of the minis for my 1E characters have required updating. K'Chaw's mini (tengu cavalier) has a new helmet, and Volutus's (sylph druid) has a new face, but only two PCs received substantial mini makeovers and/or new art. 

Cassilda Tillinghast

Cassilda Tillinghast (human mindblade magus) received a second portrait almost 2 years ago (see above). She can now manifest two psychic weapons at once, so I felt the need to depict that. I haven't updated her mini yet, but may do so whenever I get to play her in an in-person game again. 

Thanks to rapid advancement through two adventure paths, Falling Rock (Shoanti human ranger/fighter) soon surpassed my other characters in power, and has been retired at 19th level. (There is one more PFS scenario that we could legally play with those characters, taking them to 20th, but it's a multi-table special that can only be run at a con. And it's a fairly old one, so we may be waiting quite a long time before demand for it reaches critical mass again.) Falling Rock continued to get even scarier with his trusty earth breaker, and ended play with a +5 impact impervious merciful adamantine weapon. He also acquired mithral full plate very early in his career, which required a dramatic rebuild of his mini: he kept the old head, but he wears a Castle/Kingdom knight's armor, a Roman legionnaire's helmet (chosen to leave his face visible), and his new earth breaker is built around a fist/hammer piece from (IIRC) the Legend of Chima theme.

Falling Rock

I have also drawn a quick B&W sketch of Falling Rock in his new armor, charging forward with his weapon raised.

Falling Rock

Second Edition Pathfinders

I have played three characters in PFS 2E so far, and may be debuting my fourth in a month or two. I have not yet drawn portraits for any of them, but the active ones all have LEGO minis, and I built a mini for the newest character while writing this column. 

Thibdab (goblin redeemer champion of Sarenrae) has advanced several levels since he made an appearance at the end of my previous PFS minis column. He retains his original head (Goblin, Minifigures Series 13), sword (Prince of Persia), and shield (Wonder Woman), but now wears platemail (plain light gray breastplate, torso, and short legs).  Much like Falling Rock above, Thibdab's new samurai helmet was chosen because it leaves his face visible--he is, after all, a goblin champion, and should be identifiable as one. His first knight-master (K'Chaw, my 1E tengu cavalier) is from Tian Xia, so his headgear is a nod to that, too.

Thibdab has also acquired a wolf mount, which he named Kazaam! (the "!" is part of the name). The wolf started out Small, so was a more of a trained companion than a mount, but is now Medium and thus large enough to bear Thibdab into battle (though he's faster without a heavily-armored goblin on his back). Most of my time playing Thibdab has been online due to Covid, so I was able to use an image of a gray LEGO warg as his wolf's Roll20 token. The warg is far too large for in-person play, so I have a LEGO dog and a goblin microfigure for when Thibdab is mounted. A couple of 1x1 plates with clips hold a shield (from the Aztec Warrior, Minifigures Series 7) and sword (a non-LEGO scimitar), and the microfigure wears the magic helmet from the Heroica theme. 

Thibdab, afoot (L) and mounted on Kazaam! (R)

Millicent Velarno is a human sorceress with the hag bloodline. This photo inspired her look--all black, with a cloak and hood, and dramatic, spooky eye makeup--and still serves as her token on Roll20. I got a chance to play her in person at a local con last summer, so she needed a mini then. She wears a witch's black torso (Minifigures Series 2), plain black legs (more practical than skirts), a cloth Batman cape, and a black hood. Her head is Tonto's, from the very short-lived The Lone Ranger theme. Here, with only the makeup visible, Depp's highly controversial racial caricature has been repurposed for a more acceptable "goth witch" look. Since I built this mini, she has acquired a demon mask, which she wears constantly to make herself even more intimidating. I have a couple of monstrous Ninjago masks (the Thunder Keeper and the Omega oni) that I keep with her mini in case I decide the scary mask needs more attention.

Millicent Velarno (L) and Xathel (R)

Xathel is an elf investigator, with a bit of rogue. (I chose an elf heritage that allows a multiclassing archetype at 1st level, and rogue added even more to his long list of trained skills.) His body is that of a Mirkwood elf, but he has Bruce Banner's head (for the green eyes) and Zan/Jayna's hairpiece (The Batman Movie Minifigures). He wears a brown cape matching his elven garb, and wields a shortsword (Sting, from LOTR/Hobbit sets). 

My brand-new, unplayed 1st-level PC for 2E is Grazga, a half-orc summoner who belongs to the (mostly human) Sarkorian tribes, whose ancestral homeland was devastated by a demonic incursion. The resulting Worldwound has been recently healed (during one of the last adventure paths released for 1E), and now some of her people are working to reclaim those lands with help from the Pathfinders and other allies. Grazga is one of her tribe's spiritual leaders, known as "god-callers," who are bonded to eidolons considered to be minor divinities. Her companion is Dontorex, who looks like a feathered dinosaur. 

Grazga's mini uses one of the old "tribal warrior" bodies from the Old West theme, with the light brown hands and head from a Star Wars alien, and long, loose hair from a Hobbit theme dwarf. Her cape is red on one side and tan on the other, turned drab side out for camouflage. (Sadly, I forget the source for this piece, as it's one of the few non-monochrome capes I own.) I would have preferred a more brightly-colored, more dinosaur-like mini for Dontorex, but ended up compromising with a Vampire Bat torso (Minifigures Series 8), which comes with small wings attached to the arms. To preserve the color scheme, I used Bytar's head (a Constrictai Serpentine character from Ninjago). 

Grazga (L) and Dontorex (R)

James Marlowe and the Giant Peach

(See the full-sized scan at my Deviant gallery.)

My wife and I recently rewatched James and the Giant Peach. Partway through, it occurred to me that Miss Spider would be the sort of costume that one of my NPCs in the Grey Angels game would choose. Lilith Corman is a goth witch, largely inspired by Wednesday Addams (and cast as Christina Ricci), who works for Nightwatch. So I sketched her costume, and added her boyfriend dressed as Mr. Centipede. Lance Bogan (cast as George Eads) is a Nightwatch commando with an ever-cheerful personality. This pairing of opposites surprises everyone--not least the couple themselves--but they've made it work for a little over a decade now.

For this piece, I used photo references of both actors as well as stills from the movie to portray them in costume. Eads is approximately a foot taller than Ricci, so tall, lanky Centipede is a good fit for their relative sizes as well as their disparate personalities.

(Nightwatch is briefly explained at the end of this blog post. For more on the Grey Angels campaign, see my links on that page to my other blog posts about my PC, Trick Tillinghast. My title above references James Marlowe, a veteran Nightwatch agent who heads up a team that goes on missions to other parallel worlds.)

A Baker's Dozen of Pathfinders

As an artist by temperament, I have drawn pictures of most of the characters I've played over my 30+ years playing RPGs (and rather less consistently, quite a few NPCs for games I've GMed). However, for the first two years I after I joined Pathfinder Society, I did not draw any of my organized play characters, despite having nearly a dozen of them to choose from. That changed back in October, when I drew my sorcerer Mahesh as part of #Inktober2018. By the end of that month, I had also drawn Cassilda Tillinghast, a campaign mode PC created for a module. Since then, I have drawn the rest of my stable of characters, as well as one each of my kids' and wife's PFS characters, and a couple other friends' characters. All of those drawings can be see in my DeviantArt gallery here, but I wanted to collect and share them in this blog, too. (I'll just be sharing my own PCs here.)

Character number isn't the best way to order these portraits, as I've had a couple of slots reserved for quite some time before I started playing the character assigned to them (and in a couple cases, those characters changed name and concept entirely when I had an idea I liked better). I also drew these portraits very much out of order, with my "dash-one" being one of the last ones I did. With that in mind, I decided to present my characters in roughly the order I started playing them. (Click on an image to see it full-sized.)

Ansari Zolta was my first-ever PFS character. He is a human rogue, the son of a Qadiran merchant. He was raised paying lip service to the Dawnflower, but during his apprenticeship to a dwarf brewer, he became a follower of Cayden Cailean. Ansari thanks Cayden for his many narrow escape, and has been initiated into the hero-god's priesthood (a single level dip, which he's unlikely to add to). 

Ansari is aware of the fractured politics within the Pathfinder Society, but has never considered joining any faction besides the Grand Lodge. His loyalty--and his relative trustworthiness for a professional sneak-thief, have earned him the notice of the Decemverate, and he has recently achieved Seeker status.

Raudabjorn Kjallaksson is more simply known as "Bjorn" among his fellow Pathfinders and members of the Ungrounded mercenary company, because most non-dwarves find his full name difficult to pronounce. This stonelord paladin of Torag is a much-decorated soldier of the Mendevian Fifth Crusade (and the Silver Crusade faction), and now bears a fiend-bane waraxe named Zakrukrul, "The Axe My Foes Fear." 

Despite his zeal for the cause, he sometimes finds himself at odds with other crusaders who have become jaded by fighting a seemingly endless war. He survives by never letting himself forget why he became a paladin: to protect the defenseless, to help the afflicted, and to raise up the downtrodden. 

Mahesh Imar A'zun is a nagaji serpentine sorcerer from Tian Xia. Not long after his arrival in Avistan, he earned a minor title in the nation of Taldor. Improving his standing among the noble class has become a full-time job between his missions for the Pathfinder Society. At the same time, he takes pains to make himself useful and likable, as he is keenly aware that, even with his new status, a nagaji will always be an outsider in Taldor. 

Mahesh has a viper familiar named Zuku, who has become quite spoiled by his master's pampering.

Mariko Snowtop is an undine white-haired witch from the port city of Goka, in Tian Xia. Despite her frail form, she always carries a heavy magical aquarium ball that contains her king crab familiar, Fiddle-De-Dee. Besides her skills as an arcane spellcaster, Mariko is also a very successful merchant with many contacts within the Exchange faction. She has allies in many far-flung places, including the Snowmask clan in the far north, the Ekujae elves of the Mwangi Expanse, and the Saltroot druids of Bloodcove. Most of her business affairs are currently focused on the Bloodcove and Kaava regions, where she has developed quite a reputation for sabotaging Aspis Consortium operations, and profiting from those victories.

Neferanu is an Osirian oread brawler who was trained as a temple guard. He joined the Scarab Sages in order to recover the lost lore of his homeland, and to learn forgotten martial arts techniques. He has had some notable success in that pursuit: he recently earned the right to become a living monolith, which allows him to increase his size and strength in combat.









Jalon Greenbottle, was the bastard son of a human mercenary, Macario Ross, and a Kyonin elf woman. His half-sister, Saadet, was born several years later, to an orc woman during another of his father's numerous affairs. When Ross died on a mission to free halfling slaves from Cheliax, the half-elf and half-orc were adopted by the Greenbottles, one of the many halfling families that their father had saved. This family history made the Liberty's Edge faction a natural fit for the siblings. Jalon trained to become an inquisitor of Gorum, and still wears his father's simple, highly worn wooden holy symbol.

Saadet [my wife's character], on the other hand, is a skulking slayer rogue. Her brute strength and dirty fighting style are complimented by her brother's finer grasp of tactics, subtlety, and ranged weaponry. As a Gorumite, Jalon is no master diplomat, except in comparison to his sister.


Nar-Lok is a half-orc heavens shaman. He wears a hat and robes festooned with stars and astrological signs, and has numerous tattoos in the same vein, in order to better advertise his profession as a fortune-teller. As a member of the Dark Archive, he repeatedly risks life and limb to recover priceless sources of magical knowledge.

Nar-Lok's first spirit animal was Stella, a thrush, but after one too many adventures in the infamous Blakros Museum, he will soon be acquiring an Improved Familiar, the wyrmling nightmare dragon, Daosvaria.

K'Chaw is a tengu cavalier who learned horsemanship in part from the Hon-La nomads of the interior of Tian Xia. She is a knight who has sworn to protect the common folk (order of the shield), and has joined the Silver Crusade out of admiration for their ideals.

K'Chaw currently rides a horse named Nene, but will soon be trading her for an axebeak mount earned on one of her earliest adventures. (I have only played K'Chaw once so far, but she is nearly 4th level thanks to GM and pregen credits.)

Volutus [left] is a sylph sky druid who worked as a sailor before joining the Pathfinder Society. 

Milo Nimblefingers [right] is a halfling cleric of Calistria. When not adventuring, he works as in a temple-operated brothel. 

Milo is my one and only Core Campaign character. He was designed to provide the roguish skills in an all-cleric party for our PFS home game, but has only played one adventure so far.

Atticus Nox is a tiefling investigator who frequently works as the partner of Nephrael Tharix, an aasimar cleric of Asmodeus. Over the past year, my wife and I earned both earned a GM boon in order to play these two characters, who belong to races not normally available for play in PFS. I have very recently completed the last tier of that boon, which allows me to give another player the ability to play an aasimar or tielfling, so now our two children will be starting to play their tiefling characters very soon.

Atticus also started with a couple promotional boons that improve his Knowledges and some other skills--very useful to an investigator!

Cassilda Tillinghast, a human mindblade magus, started out as a character created to play in a Pathfinder module in campaign mode. (See this column.) We haven't quite finished that module yet, but I've already decided that I want to rebuild her from 1st level for regular PFS play. She's currently one of my "GM babies" (a character with XP solely from earning GM credit) until after we finish The House on Hook Street, because I don't need two versions of "alternate universe Trick" competing for attention with each other!

Mumbly Peg is a kitsune hunter from the wilderness of northern Avistan. Peg was inspired by the fact that one of the We Be Goblins! series of modules grants access to an owlbear animal companion. My home group played all five Goblins adventures over the Christmas holidays, and we plan to replay the one with the owlbear boon so that we can earn it for characters who can make proper use of it. That's why Peg is shown here with an owlbear, though she will have to settle for an ordinary bear until 2nd level, and only a Small bear/owlbear until 4th. However, she's only just earned her first XP--a GM credit--last month, and will probably remain a "GM baby" at least until the owlbear comes online.

2018 in Review: The Blog

"Studded Plate" is now four years old!

I started this blog in late 2014, and has been a weekly blog since early 2015. This time last year, I posted a brief review of what I had accomplished on my blog during 2017. In the interest of monitoring my own progress, and assisting any new readers I've acquired since then, I've decided to make this an annual tradition. 

To quote last year's review: "I write about roleplaying games, LEGO toys, and how I combine the two, with occasional forays into my other hobbies. I have a number of ongoing series that I add to as I find the time and inspiration. These include session summaries for the campaigns that I Game Master, reviews of RPG and LEGO products, and other subjects." Each item below includes a link to either the series index (if I've created a separate page for one) or to the most recent installment (which usually includes a list of links to earlier columns).

"Building the Bestiary" is my series on how I build LEGO miniatures for my tabletop role-playing games. It focuses on the first Pathfinder RPG Bestiary and the D&D 5E Monster Manual. It's my longest-running series here (19 installments plus the Index), but I only finished two new columns for it this year (Aberrations and Celestials).

I wrote more reviews of collectible LEGO Minifigures Series in 2018 than I did in 2017, covering The LEGO Ninjago Movie, The LEGO Batman Movie Series 2, Series 18: Party, and Harry Potter & Fantastic Beasts.

"Time of the Tarrasque" is a homebrew Pathfinder campaign that I started in January 2017. We had a hiatus of about a year due to some players moving away and others (including myself) having dramatic changes in employment, but we were finally able to start again in September with a smaller group. We've completed 17 sessions of this game so far, so I have finally made an index page for it.

I continued running Tales from the Yawning Portal (D&D 5E) for my wife and children. However, my kids are now playing in local Pathfinder Society games regularly, and "Time of the Tarrasque" has restarted, so we all have less time to devote to this game. That has seriously delayed us finishing The Forge of Fury, but I hope to fit that in soon so we can leave this campaign at a better stopping point while we wait for a good time to start the next adventure.

Speaking of Pathfinder Society, I've played nearly three times as many sessions this year as I did in 2017 (as of writing this, I have played or GMed 107 adventures in 2018). I also earned my first GM star (for running 10+ games) this year. I won't be able to GM as often now that Tarrasque has started up again, but I do plan to continue running occasional scenarios when needed. I rarely discuss those games here in my blog, but many of my "Building the Bestiary" models have seen use in those games (or originated in prep for them), and I recently posted photos of the iconic character minis that I built for PFS. 

I posted a couple of articles about Green Ronin's Fantasy AGE system towards the end of 2017, with the intention of doing more, but other games have taken up too much of my GM headspace to follow through with Fantasy AGE this year.

I did, however, continue my series of Freeport 5E articles. 2018 featured installments about using Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and Mordenkainen's Book of Foes with Green Ronin's Freeport setting; using the Book of the Righteous and Cults of Freeport together; and more reviews of new "Unearthed Arcana" and "Plane Shift" material. In addition, I backed four Kickstarters for third-party 5E products this year: Mini-Dungeon Tome (AAW Games), Tome of Horrors (Frog God Games), Strongholds & Followers (Matt Colville), and Pirate Campaign Compendium (Legendary Games). Once I receive my print copies of the last two, I plan to give them similarly Freeport-focused reviews. (I backed the first two at the PDF level only, so might or might not do the same with them.)

I participated in #Drawloween in 2016, but worked far too much overtime in October 2017 to do so that year. This year, I didn't care for the list of prompts for #Drawloween (too many weird, overly limiting puns), so instead decided to try #Inktober (which used single words). I posted those drawings in small batches here in the blog, but you can also see the whole set at my DeviantArt gallery.

During my 35+ years of gaming, I've almost always drawn portraits of my RPG characters, but for some reason, I went over two years in Pathfinder Society without drawing any of those PCs. I drew my first one during #Inktober this year, and drew and posted another (Cassilda Tillinghast) soon after. I've drawn a third PFS PC since then, and plan to do more, but I haven't decided yet how I want to share them here on my blog. (Meanwhile, I'll be posting them to DeviantArt as I finish them.)

#Inktober2018: Days 27-31

Here are the last few days of my drawings for #Inktober2018, plus a short spooky story for Halloween.

To see all my #Inktober2018 drawings, see this folder in my DeviantArt gallery.

Day 27: Thunder

From a photo reference (here).

This drawing is a tribute to Patricia "Trick" Tillinghast, one of my characters from a long-running Buffy/Angel RPG campaign.

 

Day 28: Gift

Drawn from a photo reference (here).

Eva Amurri Martino was "cast" as my character, Patricia "Trick" Tillinghast, in a Buffy/Angel game many years ago. The drummer in my "Thunder" drawing was a tribute to Trick, so I decided to draw her again today.

Day 29: Double

Day 30: Jolt

Day 31: Slice

The oldest dream that I remember was also one of the scariest. It was before we moved to a new, larger house during my kindergarten year, so I must have been 4 at the time, or possibly 5. My room was tiny, with barely enough room for my twin bed, a small desk, and a dresser. In my dream, I woke up in the middle of the night, and looked around my room. It was the middle of the night, but in the moonlight coming through the window, I could see a pile of letters and papers on the floor between the bed and dresser. While I looked at them, the papers stirred, swirled around like a miniature whirlwind, then rose up to form a roughly humanoid shape. This thing grabbed me and held me up in the air with an arm made of letters and envelopes. Its other arm ended in a blade made of paper, and it began to cut slices off of me, starting at the toes and working its way upward. I could see each piece falling away, looking just like when a cartoon character gets chopped up into steaks. I couldn't move or scream--at least, not until I woke up just before it reached my neck.

#Inktober2018: Days 21-26

I played a little catch-up last night, and had a couple others I hadn't posted yet.

To see all my #Inktober2018 drawings, see this folder in my DeviantArt gallery.

Day 21: Drain

Day 22: Expensive

Day 23: Muddy

I tried to draw a scary Mudkip, but it didn't work, so I drew it the way it wanted to be seen.

Day 24: Chop

Day 25: Prickly

I started out trying to draw the cactus petrifern from a past session of my "Time of the Tarrasque" game, but it came out as its own unique monster--perhaps a desert vegepygmy?

Day 26: Stretch

#Inktober2018: Days 17-20

To see all my #Inktober2018 drawings, see this folder in my DeviantArt gallery.

Day 17: Swollen

Day 18: Bottle

If you're as confused as this gnome is, read here about Klein bottles. (You might very well still be confused after reading that page.)

Day 19: Scorched

Yet another Pathfinder goblin. They're great fun to draw!

Day 20: Breakable