Five Leagues Campaign Turns 5, 6, and 7

Three more campaign turns have been posted!

• Turn 5 & 6 : Growth in the Gardens and a Lost Trail

• Turn 7 : Brigands at Last

See the full campaign.

Here are some highlights (spoilers): 

In the Elven Gardens the young follower "Shrub" became the hero "Hedge."

Brigands were tracked through the wilderness all the way to Wyvern's Rest.

Several happenings conspired to delay the recovery of the messenger's Satchel.
The trail was permanently lost after an odd encounter with a memory manipulating scholar wearing a lotus signet ring.

That evening in Wyvern's Rest, the company was robbed and followed the thieves back to their camp. The thieves were defeated and a lot of gold was recovered, but the correspondence in the messenger bag was gone.

Five Leagues Campaign Turns 3 & 4

Two more campaign turns have been posted!

Turn 3 : The Missing Satchel

Turn 4 : Highway Wolves

Or see the full campaign.

Here are some highlights:

An encounter

Brandal summons a genie and Benniard becomes the wolf!

Five Leagues Campaign Turn 2

Campaign Turn 2 is now up!

Turn 2 : In and Around Taurtorg

The stumbling dead..

 ...reveal a deep secret about Taurtorg!

Starting Five Leagues from the Borderlands

This effort will describe a miniatures wargame campaign play-through of Five Leagues from the Borderlands (3rd edition).  

Five Leagues from the Borderlands is a solo adventure wargame where you take the role of a warband of heroes and adventurers, and explore a grim world full of monsters, enemies, creeping malice, and exciting quests.

Five Leagues is a small book with limited lore and the game system relies on players to use their imagination to spin a story based on core elements and happenings which are generated randomly. The player may earn and spend "story points" to put their thumb on the scale, however nearly any event can be shown to be related (even intimately so) with just a little creativity. On the other hand, enemies and battles are meant to be adapted to your existing miniatures collection.

My world (and miniatures collection) will be styled primarily after Tolkien's Middle-Earth with influences from Howard's Hyborean Age, Salvator's Ice Wind Dale, Sapkowski's Witcher, as well as classic fantasy games like HeroQuest, and Warhammer Fantasy.

The Return of HeroTeX

HeroTeX is a LaTeX package which automatically formats the standard one-page Quest notes used in HeroQuest.

All you need to get started is:

• a PDF HeroQuest map generated from (as from HeroScribe)
• the HeroTeX package
• and a free LaTeX account at Overleaf.com.

The rest of this post will demonstrate how to quickly create your first Quest.

HeroScribe

You are here because you are using HeroScribe for Quest maps and would like to create authentic looking Quest notes to match. I run Linux, and from there "java -jar heroScribe.jar" works right out of the box after downloading the HeroScribe package.

I'm sorry that I cannot help you with this part if you are having issues.

HeroTex Package

Download the HeroTex zip file. You may want to unzip it and have a look, but this is not necessary.

There are many files, but most of them are graphical assets with duplicate entries for Color and Black & White formats as well as support for Chaos/Dread naming conventions.

LaTeX

If you already know how to use PDF LaTeX and have a full fonts package installed, you should be able to compile and view the DemoQuest. And this should be enough to get you using all of the provided tools.

If you are not familiar with LaTeX, then you can get setup quickly by heading over to Overleaf.com and creating a free account with unlimited projects (of limited scope). Thankfully these simple HeroQuest documents are within those limits. I signed up with my Google account and it was very easy.

1. Create your Overleaf account
2. Create a New Project, select "Upload  Project" and feed it the HeroTeXv01.zip file you just downloaded.
3. Switch the "main document" to DemoQuest.tex
1. Press "menu" button on the Overleaf website
2. Find the "Main document" entry and change it from the random file it has selected by default to DemoQuest.tex.
4. Press the Recompile button to generate the PDF

Generating your own quest involves uploading your own map and entering your quest text.

You should be entering your notes in the "code editor" and as text and a few useful commands. I took a quick look at the visual editor and I do not see how it will be helpful for us, but I'd like to be proven  wrong here.

The DemoQuest has some helpful comments, but you can ask me questions in the comments here if you need help.

Enjoy!

Streams of Silver - Completed Build Log

 "Streams of Silver - Caldwell Cover"

R.A. Salvatore, Streams of Silver, Forgotten Realms / D&D

Build Log list

1. Getting Started
2. Cover Plate
3. Terrain
   
4. Backdrop
5. Completed Scene
   
6. Box and Electrical

Final Video

Streams of Silver - Box and Electrical

 

Completed Booknook!

The final developments for this nook (and my other booknooks) involves building the wooden case and adding lights.

A Free Standing Case

Because the skulls on sting are kind of delicate, I constructed the case separately such that the scene could be installed once completed. This represents a large improvement in my construction method.

The empty wooden box

I cut a few scraps of foam to match the interior size of the book nook. Then I fitted the foam core outer shell of the nook around it and hot glued the pieces together at the corners. The interior core is not glued to anything and although tightly fit, can be slid out at any time.

To create the box, thin sheets of bass wood were glued to the foam core (and each other) with wood glue. The wood sheets are over-sized / cut to approximate dimensions only, and once the glue is dry, the extended edges are trimmed and sanded flush.

This method worked well, and I labeled and saved the interior foam blocks for use in later projects.

Lights

5V USB charging power is used in all of my booknooks. To get started, I setup a sample circuit with a charger as the power supply and found that my white LEDs pull 6mA when connected in series with a 360 Ohm resistor. (the voltage drop across the resistor was 2.12V). With 6 lights, the nook will pull 36mA at 5Vm, less than 0.2 Watts.

I created a lighted top panel and test fit it in the nook several times. The curved part is designed to support and mount the background.

White LEDs poked through the foam core light panel

Then I wired the circuit with one resistor per LED as shown. This configuration prevents the variation in LED manufacture from routing too much current to any single LED.

And testing the system looks good!

Lastly I glued parchment paper over the top to diffuse the light so as not to cast harsh shadows.

Parchment paper diffuser attached

Then I carved wiring channels on the side of the nook to mount two low lights on the front. If we don't add these lights low and in front, then the miniature will be in shadow.

Channels for the recessed lights and wiring 

Front LED lights

With the lights installed (with the backdrop), the three wires were soldered to an old USB cable I cut the end off of.

Final wiring with strain relief (bottom left).

I also added a strain relief on the cable by building up a small pile of scrap bass wood and pinching / gluing the wire in place. Strain relief prevents accidental tugs on the cord from ripping apart the wiring inside the nook.

And in a final step (not shown), a back plate of foam core was added to the nook. The front and back plate are required for structural stability of the box.