photo saturday: the dino ranger

Did I just realise that just under half of the past ten images have all been halflings? Not until just now, no. Am I going to apologise for that? No, I I am no. Is it plausible that we're about to do a run of halflings? Yes, yes it is.

And a little like last week, this week's DnD Character Colouring Book is a character that was never really properly a character... Mielo Thornhill.

Mielo Thornhill did kind of see the light of day as a sidekick when I ran the one on one DnD game for Ma a couple of Christmases ago, and given that the new DnD source book has a ranger class I'm interested in, a bunch of racial changes AND default beasts for the Beastmaster that can be reskinned into anything you like, Mielo may very well get repurposed into a functional character at some point. I very much like the idea of him running around with a little parrot-feathered velociraptor (you know, the actual, historical, turkey sized ones, not the fictitious people sized Jurassic Park ones)... So he deserves another chance at some point. 

It also continues to boggle my mind the difference between what I was putting together in Photoshop four years ago, and what I'm basically able to pull out of Hero Forge directly with a few minor Photoshop augments.

Also, there are certain Hero Forge hairstyles that I just get instantly obsessed with... and this is one of them. And I've had to restrain myself from giving more characters either this version of the more textured version from last week.

And what better character to give a leopard print outfit to than a ranger living in Chult (where the dinosaurs live/they keep all of the jungle). This might also be one of the more subtle tattoo placements thus far, but I like what the Mayan symbols for "spirit", "book" and "bone" say about his character.

It's also highly likely that the Mielo model might get reused at some point, put in a different outfit and given different colouring, because it's a good looking face. Speaking of faces, I did enjoy that, pretty much accidentally, the Hero Forge raptor mount came out with just the right facial expression to give some indication of the character of Rascal. Also that if a 3 foot tall halfling has a 1.6 foot (at the hip) velociraptor companion, they're not that far off in scale from each other. Also the idea of a big fluffy idiot of a dinosaur in ridiculously bright parrot colours just appeals to me. As does putting them in a spiked collar, even though it makes sense in protecting him from other creatures.

I also wonder if me giving Mielo the same surname as the lead character in Hitchcock's North by Northwest was intentional or accidental. I assume the latter, but I wouldn't put it past my brain to have done it subconsciously.

Also, the name of the crossbow, written across the stock, is Lavinia.

Anyway...

Well, I gave up on the of dyeing the new chair covers. I washed them in preparation, and remembered just how much of a giant pain in the ass dealing with them just for that was, let alone all the extra drama of actually dyeing them, then rewashing them and drying them... so I threw my metaphorical hands up in the air and went "fuck it". And once the covers were dry I just put them on the chairs.

Firstly, stripping the old covers off the chair was a surprise, because I'd forgotten just how red the original chairs were. The answer is, very. So, putting the very beige covers over them was a little sad. I mean, they look fine, it's just that beige isn't particularly my vibe. But it will do for now.

Two weeks in a row of Thursday Night DnD... nobody jinx it. Most of the session was multiple waves (well, two) of combat, but at least it was combat that required a small amount of planning and strategy.

And I will say that as much as I enjoy the optional Steady Aim ability for rogues... it does mean that I tend to just stand in place the whole time. Which feels... less roguey. But then my boy Dax is much less of a "run and hide" kind of character. So, swings and roundabouts I guess.

Friday Night DnD was... a tale of two parts. Firstly, don't introduce a fucking Deck of Many Things into a game I'm part of. I don't want it, I'm not interested in it, I won't every fucking pull a card from it no matter what. It's a bullshit item that wrecks campaigns and there is literally no positives to it, even with this new "extended deck". No thank you sir and ma'am.

The other half was proactively kicking the ass of something that was 100% going to try and ambush us at some point.

Anyway...

If I live to be 1500 years old, I will never quite understand why people loose their goddamn mind on Easter Saturday at the supermarket. Are there really that many people who normally shop on Friday, Sunday or Monday that suddenly have to squeeze in their shopping on Saturday morning? Have the people who I know lost their minds on Thursday night because the shops were going to be shut for a single day who also need to get more things on Saturday? Do people actually do big gatherings that require the buying of items on Easter Sunday? Or is that just something that supermarkets try to tell us all is happening?

But the literal fucking clown car of people that descend on the supermarket on Easter Saturday has always and continues to boggle my whole entire mind.

Whatever... 

This week marks the beginning of Soup Season. Not that you'd know it from this weekend where we're having an Easter around 30C. But I'm going to essentially freestyle a "Mexican style chicken soup". We'll see how we go.

After supermarket mayhem we just came back here, watched the penultimate episode of Canadian Pottery Throwdown and then called it a day.