Presenting ... Bob Moss

When I saw this Classic Treant from the Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures line by WizKids, I couldn't resist buying it. It looks like it came straight out of the first edition Monster Manual.

Whether I end up using it for Shadowdark, I figured the sculpt, with all that texture, would be easy to paint, and I was right.

I sprayed it with a dark brown basecoat (Rustoleum's Espresso paint+primer) and drybrushed the trunk in lighter shades of brown craft paint, then a golden yellow, then a light gray.

I did the leaves the same way, starting with a dark hunter's green, adding successively brighter shades, and finishing with a light drybrush of bright yellow.

The eyes were ivory, then an antique maroon for the colored part, then a dot of bright yellow for a highlight. I then added grass and plants to the base, and Bob's your treant!

My latest obsession ...

 Shadowdark!

After hearing good things about it on the you-tubes, I picked up a hardbound copy of the Shadowdark RPG from its publisher, The Arcane Library. 

Shadowdark uses modern mechanics (such as d20 difficulty checks and advantage/disadvantage) to provide an old-school experience (dungeon crawls and emergent narrative). Part of that OSR vibe is that characters don't get experience for defeating bad guys, just for finding treasure. This mechanic inspires out-of-the-box thinking instead of just trying to kill everything that moves.

The writing is concise and reminds me of the Holmes Basic rulebook--sections are one or two pages, and concepts explained in a few paragraphs. Part of that is character creation: Roll 3d6 in order for each stat, pick an ancestry and class, roll for starting money, and you have a PC in under 10 minutes.

My gaming group is mostly wargamers, but they've expressed willingness to try out this D&D-type experience, so I hope to have a scenario prepped for them soon. I'd like to eventually turn it into a West Marches-style sandbox campaign, but for now I just want to run a dungeon crawl.

Has anyone played this RPG? Does it sound like something you would be willing to try? If my description of Shadowdark sparks your interest, you can get the Quickstart Set for free. Let me know what you think!