Legends of Gath #69; Two Skellies Under a Fig Tree

There's a lot to be said for finding a vine or fig tree to sit under with your guitar.

Legends of Gath #68; The Freedom to Choose Death

Legends of Gath #67; He Died Two Weeks Before His Coronation But Nobody Told Him

Wear a helmet while cycling in Gath and perhaps training wheels, too. 

Legends of Gath #66; Vaxx or Die

Destination unknown is vaccinated. Anything beyond that just leaves me, the skellie boyz, the slobbering godless mutants and Turtleneck Joe squinting in confusion. 

Legends of Gath #65; Try Not To Self-Immolate

I drew this one a while back when idiots were filling plastic bags with gasoline during a short term gas shortage back east. We are more than 18 months out since I started this series and I have less hope for the country now than I did then. Oh well.

Legends of Gath #64; T is for Traitor

Legends of Gath #63; The Mutant's Gambit

 I really enjoyed the Queen's Gambit from Netflix. I thought I'd pay homage with this instalment, as well as upcycle an NPC from the days when I played this campaign online. Happy New Year, gamestas. 

Legends of Gath #62; Teenage Wasteland

Gath continues to circle the drain...

Legends of Gath #61; 64 Squares of Fury

 It's not all bad in Gath. It's mostly bad. But not all bad.

Legends of Gath #60: Steal The Election Fair and Square

 This day, man. Dear God what a nail biter. 

Legends of Gath #59: Election Night in Gath

 Well, here we are. Good luck out there, everyone. Businesses are being boarded up here in Los Angeles as we brace for turmoil. Let's all hope and pray people can remain calm regardless of the electoral outcome. 

     If you ever want to play through some of these scenarios, I suggest the following kind of character built off the usual retroclone idea:

Wasteland Explorer

Alignment: Lawful or Neutral

Armor Class 13 (leather jacket +2, Dex bonus +1)

Hit Dice 2

Hit Points 14 (Con bonus of +1 per hit die)

Move 30' (5 squares per round, 10 if running)

Save as: Fighter level 2

Attacks as: Fighter level 2 

     Machete: +2 to hit (strength bonus), 1d6+2 to damage

     9mm pistol: +1 to hit (Dex bonus), RoF 3, 1d6 damage, 12 rounds currently in magazine

Gear: Backpack with 1 gallon purified water, rations for 5 days, knife (1d4 damage), sleeping bag, razor, toothbrush, first aid kit (heals 1d4 points of damage)

Special Abilities: Cut Down the Vermin Like Wheat: If a foe is killed with a melee attack, you get a free attack on another foe provided he is in a square adjacent to the enemy just slain. 

Legends of Gath #58; The Return of the Queen

Fear not! Poppy has come to save Gath and to save us all. In the earliest iteration of Gath, Poppy was the only comprehensible form that the Angel of the Lord could assume. All other forms visible to humans caused mass death, mutation and frothing anger. It's better this way.

     Any of you doubters should take note of the fact that Poppy predicted this whole mess exactly three years before the shelter in place order came down in So. Cal. Scoreboard!

Legends of Gath #57; The Sword of Goliath

The Angel of the LORD was rolling straight 20s that night. 

     I can't find any reference to David keeping Goliath's sword after he used it to chop off the Philistine's head, but I like to think he did.

     REDACTED On a final note, I need to refrain from using the term "mutant." I never intended the living residents of Gath to be radiated mutants, but I accidentally used the term and it got stuck in my head. Oops.

     On a  final, final note, using a melee weapon instead of a gun in Gath yields 2x the xps for a kill. It's what Denzel Washington would want. 

Legends of Gath #56; About That Life

Huh, I kind of forgot to draw the bathroom wall so it looks like the door is just suspended in space. Weird. 

     Burying King Saul's head might be a nice touch. Then again, he was forsaken by God so it gets complicated theology-wise. 

     After my head and hands melt from digesting jazz theory at the piano, I sometimes listen to "About That Life." It's simultaneously the best and worst thing I have ever seen. No apologies are made by that band. They know what they are and they revel in a chaotic realm of booze and implants. I'm not judging. It's glorious in its absurdity. The denizens of Gath love it. 

Legends of Gath #55; Governor Gathmer

Life in the Gath-pocalypse continues to get weirder and more intense. I draw these absurd vignettes because it's all too much to comprehend. Best wishes to Gov. Whitmer and her family. She seems like an articulate, brave person. I'm glad her would-be assailants were so incompetent. 

Legends of Gath #54; Irritable Bowel Mutants

Legends of Gath #53; The king is dead! Long live the king!

I totes suggest running away from The Last King of Gath. That energy drain will get ya. Maybe Turtleneck Joe can load some silver tipped rounds for your rifle? That'd even things up, I think. Huh. Now I gotta figure out where the silver is going to come from. 

Paper Bandits

I quickly sketched some more paper minis while watching the first inning of the Dodgers vs. The Cheating Trashcan Bangers of Houston. From left to right we have Piotr, Igor, Stanislaw, Wiktor and Jakub. Yeah, strong Polish vibe. I left the black blank so that I could jot down their name, AC and hps. 

Piotr: Can burp the alphabet and likes making grown men cry. 

Igor: Loves to smash people in the face with his shield. Never met a cat he didn't like to kick.

Stanislaw: Used to shove old people to the ground just to hear people around him gasp in horror. Music to his ears, all that gasping and outrage.

Wiktor: Loves shooting people in the back. And in the front. Heck, he just loves filling people with arrows. 

Jakub: Has caught every social disease there is to catch. He collects them likes freaky badges of honor. 

     This quintet have been waylaying farmers during the fall harvest. They are trying to gather enough stores for the winter are on quite the tear. There are rewards for their heads, but everyone who has tried to collect it has either given up or ended up in a ditch.  

     Regarding that trash can banging for the confused...

Tentacles in the Mist

On Wednesday Matt of msjx.org ran me through a brief adventure using Tiny Dungeons 2e. The system appears to be quite promising. It reminds me of Basic D&D reimagined with a hint of Fate Accelerated.

     Matt's setting drew upon Stephen King's The Mist for inspiration. My character was a reclamation expert who rappelled from a flying ship to pick through the ruins in areas where the mist had momentarily retreated. Much fun was had.

    Tonight I got to return the favor by hosting both Matt and Brutorz Bill of the Green Skeleton Gaming Guild.  We used Matt's setting and this time he got to play the role of explorer. Since we are learning the system, the encounters were fairly low key, but it was a very good time. Tiny Dungeons plays pretty fast and the rules facilitate play without getting in the way.

     We played via Zoom for 90 minutes, with a document camera for an overhead map view. The players each had a physical copy of the map on their ends with a grid, so we were able to move minis around fairly easily.

     I'm not sure if we will use this setting/characters again, but I sure hope we can keep on playing and trying out new rules and worlds. There's not tons to do here in LA these days, so brief forays into the imagination are very welcome.

     Below is my Tiny Dungeon hero from Matt's game. I like the mix of old school and new school aspects of the rules. For anyone who has played both 1e and 3x, there's lots to like and plenty of familiar territory.

Legends of Gath #52: Lights Out, Knives Out

It was pushing 120 on Sunday when the power went out. Within 10 minutes the sirens started roaring around town. Not gonna lie. I was totes jelly of my neighbor's generator. That thing mocked me for two blistering days. Oh well.