Tag Archives: Dungeons & Dragons

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Flesh Golem Frank N. Stein — Mini Monday 24

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying and tabletop gaming. This week we’re painting Mr Frank N. Stein, the flesh golem from the Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game.

The flesh golem from the Castle Ravenloft Board Game is one of my favourite minis. The detail is crisp and he looks like he has just walked onto the stage of an Iron Maiden concert. I wanted him to have really gross, leathery skin, and I’m very pleased with how he turned out.

Undercoating and Flesh Wash Magic

I sprayed the mini white, then painted sections of his skin in off-green, off-blue, and flesh colour. I also left some sections white. It’s all in the name of visual interest.

Yum, yum. I think I might never eat sushi again.

I then went over this with my magical Flesh Wash. I’ve used it in a few projects now, such as the skeletons. Flesh Wash was perfect for getting that dry leather look, and the off-green and off-blue shows though enough to give it a sickly look. Perfection!

Flesh Wash for a Flesh Golem! I knew there was something to the name!

Stitches and Iron

After some experimenting, I painted the stitches black. If Dr Frankenstein was using thread, these would turn black from the blood it would soak up. I did try adding silver to make them look like staples, but that didn’t make sense to me in a fantasy setting, so I ditched the idea.

Okay, he has metal fingers under the flesh of his one hand, but I’m still not doing staples. I picked out the raised metal edges with silver paint.

Disaster

I didn’t want to paint every stitch, so I tried a marker pen instead. What I didn’t realise until I’d finished was that I was using a dry-erase pen. Whenever I added wet paint or varnish, the colour ran and pooled in an ugly mess. What seems to have worked was going over this with an actual permanent marker or dryish paint.

Live and learn.

Exposed Muscle

I painted the flesh golem’s exposed muscle pink, then went over the raised parts with a reddish-purple. I used a black wash to pick out the detail, and then made sure to use a gloss varnish to make this section appear wet.

Pants

We decided on purple pants to contrast nicely with the orangy flesh, and because this guy looks like an undead version of the Hulk.

I painted the pants the same reddish-purple as the exposed muscle, then dry brushed a lighter purple over the raised bits. The straps were painted a leathery brown and given metal highlights on the buckles. Finally, I used a black wash (watered-down black paint) to pick out the shadows.

The first layer of paint on the pants. It’s not very smooth, but the dry brushing will cover that up.

Final Details

I painted the tongue pink and the teeth yellow, then these also got a black wash. When I was done, I gave varnished the flesh golem with matt varnish, except for the exposed muscle, as I mentioned before.

Here he is again, in all his gory glory.

Rising Phoenix Games’ RPG Con is On

Rising Phoenix Games’ RPG Con is this week, all week, right here on the blog!
 
us for articles like this one, interviews, discounts, and more RPG fun!
 
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Buy Dungeons & Dragons Books, Creators

Dungeons & Dragons Friends,

These are interesting days. Again and again, I’ve been amazed by the ability we have as humans to adapt and thrive, even under immense pressure. The Dungeons & Dragons community, and the RPG community at large, has shown true solidarity in pulling together in these difficult times.

OneBookShelf announced that, from May 4th until May 17th, all earnings on the Dungeon Masters Guild will go directly to community creators.

This is a massive opportunity for us, since community creators like us usually take 50% of the earnings made off any sale. In many cases, this 50% is then split between those who contributed to the project. OBS and WotC have been very generous with this offer, since community creators and their contributors will now effectively earn double off each sale!

There’s Never Been a Better Time to Buy

At Rising Phoenix Games we strive for quality. Our team is made up of experienced RPG creators, all with a ion for the hobby and for creating quality Dungeons & Dragons resources. We’ve worked together with David N. Ross, Kim Frandsen, Ismael Alvarez, and Michael Ritter, to create titles we know you’ll love using at your table. I’ve also had the privilege of working with DMG creators like M.T. Black and friends on the best selling Player’s Companion. All of these creators deserve and appreciate your .

If you’ve had your eye on any of our titles, please consider purchasing them before May 17th. Also, if you know other Dungeons & Dragons players, please share this post with them.

Our Dungeons & Dragons Titles

Here’s the full list of our Dungeon Masters Guild titles, all 20% off during the Play it Forward sale:


Player's Handbook
Adventurers Guide to Fey Magic - Dungeons & Dragons
Manual of Masks

Aurora's Summer Catalogue
Aurora's Autumn Catalogue
Aurora's Winter Catalogue

Race & Class Guide for Dungeons & Dragons
Mutants & Mariners
Street Fighter

Genjutsu Master
Deadly Dancer - Dungeons & Dragons
Lightining Bruiserr

Rising Phoenix Games wouldn’t be what it is today without all our friends and collaborators. Friends like you. Thank you for ing us!

Stay well and happy gaming!

Rodney Sloan and the Rising Phoenix Games team.

Tips and Tricks

Mini Monday #16: Painting Skeletons and Easy Rust

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It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying table. This week we’re painting skeletons and rust.

Walking skeletons are a staple of fantasy, so knowing how to paint them will come in handy, even if you’re only painting a few for your roleplaying sessions. This method is super simple and very effective. If you haven’t already had a look at how I painted Yochlol, be sure to check it out. That tutorial goes into using Flesh Wash, which is the key ingredient in this recipe.

1. Basecoat White Then Flesh Wash

Basecoat your skeletons white, then wash with Flesh Wash, aka Ink Wash: Flesh.

2. Dry Brush Off White

For this step, I used a 1:1 mix of white and a brownish flesh tone. You’re looking for whatever looks the most like bone.

The guy in the middle isn’t dry brushed, so you can compare the effect.
All dry brushed… and done!

To dry brush, dip your brush in the paint, then wipe most of the paint off. Paint this residue over the raised edges of your model by flicking the brush back and forth. It takes a little practice, but the technique is very useful.

And that’s it, those bones are done. Let’s move on to the rust.

3. Paint Rusty Surfaces Orange

‘Nuff said!

You can mix things up and have patches of different shades of orange, if you like. We’ll be adding plenty of visual variety still, so don’t worry too much if you don’t.

4. Sponge on Brown

Using a small bit of sponge and tweezers, sponge brown over the rusty surfaces. Like with dry brushing, you don’t want too much paint on the sponge here. The aim is to get a random pattern of dots.

5. Paint in Metal Edges

Now, here’s the magic part. Paint a metallic colour on the edges of the swords and shields, focusing on raised edges that would see wear in battle.

It’s a smoke and mirrors technique, but the metallic edges sell the rust and suggest that the weapons and shields are actually made of metal… actually.

6. Finishing Up

Lastly, put some Nuln Oil or a black wash over the rusty armaments, paint or base the bases as you wish, and seal off the miniature with two coats of matt varnish.

Done dun dun dun DONE!

I was blown away by how easy and effective these techniques were. I’ve used the rust technique a bunch of times on my Warhammer 40,000 orks already, and painting these bones felt like cheating, it was that easy.


Mini Monday

Adventurer’s Guide to Fey Magic

The Adventurer’s Guide to Fey Magic is an introductory guide featuring advice, treasure, charms, and other rewards for your journeys into the Feywild. Written by David N. Ross, the PDF clocks in at 26 pages, with the OGL and credits taking a page of that, together.

From the Back Cover

The homes of the fey — in the Feywild or in enchanted regions of the mortal world — offer power and danger for local heroes and intrepid interlopers alike. Many seek their fortunes there for good reason. Any adventurer might quest for the otherworldly power of the fey courts, or even aspire to become an archfey, in the right circumstances.

Part 1 of the guide helps adventurers orient themselves among the fey.

Part 2 provides a variety of unique fey rewards for adventurers to seek out.

The Adventurer’s Guide to Fey Magic is available on the DMs Guild.

The Adventure Begins

David, who has many writing credits, particularly for Paizo, came to me with an idea for a series of books on the Fey and Feywild of Faerûn, and the ball got rolling.

Now, we’d like you to us as we plan for the next book in the series. What would you like to see David and I unpack with book 2? Let us know, in the comments below.

Magic Life Lessons and Mini Monday

I’ve decided to put our two blog series on hold for now, so that we can focus on producing more exciting RPG content. If you enjoyed Mini Monday, please leave a comment on one of the posts in the series and let us know. Your means a great deal to us.

With MLL and MM out of the way, we’ll be able to focus on our free fiction. The first release, First , is on the blog.



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Genjutsu Master, the Illusionist Monk Tradition

The Genjutsu Master is an illusion flinging monk tradition for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition.

Use your ki to cast illusion spells to fool your enemies, with 22 Genjutsu Disciplines to choose from.

The book includes a phone-optimized PDF, for ease of use at the table.

What is Genjutsu? It’s the art of creating illusions and affecting reality.

Disciple of Genjutsu

The genjutsu master learns how to mold their ki and manipulate the ki of others to produce powerful illusions. Some use these abilities to become invisible spies and assassins, while others use them to entertain or manipulate the masses. The way of the genjutsu master is therefore carefully guarded and shrouded in secrecy, with each sensei carefully choosing their students and testing them before even the most basic skills are taught.

Genjutsu Disciplines

Genjutsu Disciplines work in the same way as Elemental Disciplines: you spend ki points, as an action, to cast them. With Genjutsu Disciplines, you cast illusion spells, turning your monk character into a master of deception and trickery.

Unlike the Elemental Disciplines, you gain access to a few more utility spells, such as phantom steed. These spells don’t have much use inside combat — although spamming the battlefield with horses seems like fun — but having access to them gives your character the utility an illusion-focused caster needs.

Get the Genjutsu Master on the Dungeon Masters Guild.

More Where That Came From

The Genjutsu Master follows on from the Street Fighter, the combo slinging monastic tradition, featured last week.

Are there any other monk traditions you’d love to see, like a Naruto-style shadow clone technique, a pro wrestler, or a 5e version of The Karate Kid? Let us know in the comments below.

And don’t forget, this brawler tee is available for a limited time only, from our Trophy Room:



General

Faster, Better, Crunchier! More Content for You!

You’re important to us, so we have a few changes planned to give you more top quality gaming content.

Playtests

Flaming tier Patreon backers have had access to our solo adventure playtests since our store. These playtests will include all of our stand-alone games and anything else we deem suitable for a playtest.

Patreon Changes

I’ll be chatting to our Patreons soon about extending our Patreon campaign to cover more types of products. Initially, we wanted to focus on solo adventures, but sales haven’t justified that focus. While we’ll still be bringing out new solo adventures, we’re looking for a more flexible approach that gives our patrons a better and more regular offering.

Print on Demand is Here!

Heaven & Hell and Anaximander’s Adventuring Studies are now available as Print on Demand titles from Drive Thru RPG! There really is nothing like that new book scent!

Forthcoming Releases

Print proofs for our new range of Madness Cards are on their way from America! Here’s what it says on the box:

As sanity slips away, draw Madness Cards to decide your player character’s mental affliction.
This pack contains 60 Madness Cards; two copies of 30 unique cards, each with a short term, long term, and indefinite madness, including afflictions from Arcanaphobia to Vampirism, compatible with the Fifth Edition OGL.

We’ll soon be releasing a new monastic tradition for the fifth edition D&D monk that will bring retro feels back to the gaming table. I’m not giving any hints, but this one’s sure to be a knockout.

Official T-Shirts

Now you can show your by wearing official Rising Phoenix merchandise from our Trophy Hall. Some designs will only be available for a short time, so don’t wait to grab the tees you like.

Till next time, happy gaming!

General

Keeping It Classy with Kim Frandsen

Kim Frandsen, author of  Heaven & Hell: Aasimar & Tiefling Ancestries for Pathfinder 2, kindly agreed to do a guest post about his Keeping It Classy series, which is available on the DMs Guild. Take it away, Kim!

Keeping It Classy

Today, I’m here to talk about fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, and more specifically a series of books that I’ve been releasing, called Keeping It Classy.

So far these have been released for the barbarian, bard, and cleric, with more to come in the following months. Each book is 40–50 pages long and jam-packed with content for that class.

A Series is Born…

So what prompted these books? Well, it was a series of conversations with fifth edition players and people who’d been having a sniff at Pathfinder (this all started before Pathfinder Second Edition came out). And the one thing that seemed to connect all of these experienced players (most had been playing for a few years) was that they felt tied down to the options given in the Player’s Handbook. For example, the barbarian only has two standard options in the PHB: Path of the Berserker and Path of the Totem Warrior.

When I started toying with the idea of various characters from fiction and myth, it struck me that it was a very limited view of what the barbarian could be. So, one evening, I sat down and started brainstorming — to see which fictional characters would fulfill the criteria of a barbarian, but who wouldn’t necessarily fit within those two paths. Rather quickly I had a long list of characters ranging from Conan (the classic barbarian, who you could, at a squeeze, fit into the Berserker, but who was really more of the “noble savage” type), Achilles (the warrior who could not be damaged), all the way over to more esoteric characters like Mr. Hyde (from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) or He-Man.

The idea of more barbarian paths was born, and I set a few goals for these. There had to be something new and unique to each path (this wasn’t so much of an issue for the Barbarian and Bard, but we’ll get to the Cleric), and I wanted there to be a plethora of options. So, my shortlist ended up being 15 different, and new, paths, all with new and unique powers.

That got me wondering: where do these people come from? Again, there are a number of backgrounds in the Player’s Handbook, but some of the character tropes that you typically see for barbarians weren’t covered, so the book ended up with 5 new backgrounds too. Of course, that got me thinking about races and equipment, until I eventually had a full book on my hands.

When The Barbarian was released, one of the first questions I got was “So, what other classes are you doing? Can I have X?” While I’d originally intended The Barbarian to be a once-off thing, I started digging into various classes and found that a lot of them had the same issue that the barbarian did, that there simply wasn’t that much choice to be had in how you made your character (the bard for example, also only has two options in the PHB, the College of Lore and the College of Valor). I realized that all of the classes, in one form or another, are a bit underserved with the options in the core books.

Now you’ll see that I’ve specifically mentioned the amount of paths/colleges available to the barbarian and bard, but that was not the issue facing the cleric. The cleric has 7 domains to choose from, but you’ll notice that a LOT of the powers are recycled or reskinned versions of each other — and DAMMIT, I want my character to be unique, not just a copy-paste of another domain. It bothered me a lot (and The Cleric took me a lot longer to write than The Barbarian and The Bard) as I wanted each domain to not only have unique powers but also to feel like they belong in a fantasy setting. This gave birth to The Cleric, and it’s 15 new domains, all tied to mythology and the existing pantheons in D&D, and all with unique powers that only they have.

In essence, I want to give you, the player, the option to make the character YOU want to make, not just the one intended by the writers of the Player’s Handbook, while maintaining the accessibility of fifth edition.

You can find The Barbarian, The Bard, and The Cleric, on the DMs Guild.

Tips and Tricks

Mushroom Miniatures — Mini Monday, Ep 5

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying table. This week I’ll show you some easy mushroom miniatures to make with clay, to decorate the subterranean caverns of your RPG table.

badger, badger, badger, Mushroom, MUSHROOM!

Badgers love mushrooms, everyone loves mushrooms! On pizza or in the dungeon, mushrooms add a touch of class that’s hard to beat. These mushroom miniatures give your players something interesting to fight around, a refreshing change from the ubiquitous grey walls and stone tombs found below.

I made these mushrooms with air drying clay. I added gills underneath with a sharp tool, by drawing lines outwards from the stem.

When they were dry, I painted the stems with white mixed with a touch of green, which gives a sickly tint to them. The mushroom caps were painted purple, and I used two shades. Lastly, I varnished them with a matt varnish, and they were done.

I molded the mushrooms by hand, and there’s nothing inside them to give them more structure, but you could use toothpicks or wire as a core — a good idea for longer stems. If you’re making bigger mushrooms to take the weight of a miniature, then use a tightly pressed core of aluminum foil as the core. It’ll be lighter and will dry quicker than a hunk of solid clay.

I didn’t base them, so they’ll fit anywhere, but you could make up mushroom forests on a large base, or myconid figures or shrieking shroom markers on smaller bases. You can find rules for myconids in the Player’s Companion.

Rodney Sloan

Rising Phoenix Games

Check out our blog, our Facebook page and on Twitter.


Tips and Tricks

Simple Drow Paint Tutorial — Mini Monday, Ep 2

It’s Mini Monday, where I share customizing, scratch building, kitbashing, and miniature painting projects for your roleplaying table. This week I’ll show you a simple drow paint scheme to have you ready for your next drow encounter in no time.

This paint scheme is perfect for an Underdark campaign and doesn’t take much time at all. I used the drow duellist miniatures from the Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game (Boardgame Geek Link).

“This way!” “No! This way!”

Base Coat

Base coat your drow miniatures with a medium to dark grey. I use this as the skin tone for my drow, since black is a very flat color that pulls in light. Your drow figures are going to be predominantly black, so the grey gives you some variation, and you can always darken it with a wash later.

Any Color as Long as its Black

Paint all the armor, weapons, bases, and gear black. Leave only the skin and hair grey. For variety, you could paint the armor and any cloth dark red or deep purple.



Hair

Drybrush the hair white. This works very well with the grey basecoat, which defines the recesses.

Metals

Pick out metallic parts by dry brushing with a metallic color. I used Mithril Silver from Citadel, which shows how old my paints are. Mithril Silver is a bright metallic, now called Runefang Steel. I painted the swords with the same metallic paint, but might have gone with a darker metallic color, like Leadbulcher, just for more variation.

Done, And…

At this point, the simple drow paint job is done. They’re ready for gaming.

If you have time, you can go back into your simple drow paint scheme and pick out details like eyes, belt straps, wands, or markings. With white, you can highlight the hair, and use greys to highlight the skin. When you’re done, use a dark purple wash to bring out the detail, but leave the hair.

Painting Heroes and Villains

This tutorial works best for rank and file drow, but you can extend these principles for major NPCs and dark elf player characters. I use this technique as my first stage on all my drow figures, then work in more detail for the major minis.

Pro Tip: Us a purple base coat if you want your drow to look like the ones in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Till next time, play good games!

Rodney Sloan
Rising Phoenix Games

Check out our blog, our Facebook page and on Twitter.

General

The Horde is Coming! — Take a Sneak Peek

Horde is a hack and slash game for 1–4 players. Stand against masses of enemies without lucky dice rolls to save you. Horde’s rules emphasize the need for clever tactics to stay alive long enough to protect the Flame of Life and defeat the deadly hordes.

Horde includes two modes: Defender, for a shorter game, and Dungeon, for a full dungeon crawl through caverns teeming with enemies.

Horde is currently in playtesting, and I’m hoping to release it by the end of the month. Here’s a peek at the cover:

Horde Cover Concept

Horde’s Concept

I wanted a game where you play a powerful hero wading through masses of enemies, where dice rolls didn’t determine the outcome of attacks, but tactics meant everything. I wanted to use as much of my growing collection of fantasy miniatures as possible and put hordes of figures on the board. Horde is my answer to that.

Playtesting Horde

The game also had to be playable solo, quick to set up, and — most importantly — loads of fun.  Horde is checking all those boxes in playtesting, and I’m excited to share more about the game with you, soon.

Horde is being created for the A Game By Its Cover game jam, inspired by the Youkai Project famicase cover art done by Yowan Langlais.

Winter Is Coming

Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalogue was a second edition D&D book for the Forgotten Realms, and we’ve brought it back for fifth edition. Aurora’s Whole Realms Winter Catalogue is out now:

Aurora’s Whole Realms Winter Catalogue

You can find the Summer and Autumn catalogues on the Dungeons Masters Guild.

Print Books Coming Soon

We’ve done print cards for a while now, mainly for maps and dungeon tiles. Now we’re adding our first print on demand (POD) titles, which will be available from Drive Thru RPG in a few months time. The first two books we’re setting up are Griffins — A Field Guide (D&D) and Anaximander’s Adventuring Studies (Pathfinder). Going forward, new titles will be available in POD, if the platform allows it.

Rodney Sloan
Rising Phoenix Games

Check out our blog, our Facebook page and on Twitter.