Thy Soul To Keep - part 1

Kapitan Alunzo da Leeva and The Rotmoons

The Rotmoons were a band of swashbuckling orruk sky-pirates. They called themselves Privateers, and acted more like pirates, but they spent more of their time acting like explorers than either. They searched the ruins of the Realms for treasures and artefacts from the Age of Myth. Their Shaman, El Doctoro, considered himself an expert on that long-forgotten era and often pronounced, with great complacency and authority, what a found treasure was or its magical powers. He was occasionally correct but only occasionally.

Their skyship, The Rotmoon, was recently wrecked (again!) in the forests of The Harrowmark. They made a deal with another orruk pirate crew, the Ogresuns; under Kaptain Salty Ogbad, to recover their cargo. But Ogbad fled with a small portion of the treasure after losing most of it to the Gilded Hand and the Ordeshal Host. The Rotmoons were reduced to looking for a ship to steal as a replacement. They hoped to cut-out one of the merchants that often call at the Wortbad skydock.

Kapitán Alunzo da Leeva - Orruk Warboss
A dashing and swashbuckling Orc Pirate; young, capable and unusually quick-witted. He was popular with his crew as he got them out of many scrapes over the years but he was unpopular with the other captains of the Ironfang Fleet who saw him as an “upstart young pup”. He was unfortunately prone to shipwreck much more often than someone with his actual skill should be.

El Doctoro - Orruk Great Shaman
Surgeon, explorer, collector, drug addict (well, Magic Mushroom addict): El Doctoro was all of these to an extent. He often dropped hints that there is more to him than just “the shaman”. He wanted the crew of the Rotmoon to think he was mysterious and complex.

Hammerhead (AKA Tiburón Martillo) - Ogor Maneater

Dressed in the Rotmoons style Hammerhead wore a black cloak and breaches, an off-white ruff, a battered morion helmet engraved with an octopus design and silvered armour. He carried a handgun that he used like a pistol and he liked to twirl his huge cutlass in great swishing arcs.

Dragante - Orruk Boss
A hulking brute of an orruk with a hook for a hand and a bad attitude. He made sure the Boyz did exactly what they were told and bashed heads together when the crews' arguments (inevitably) turned into fights.

The crew...

Update (5th Feb 2018): I've made a Warlock to go with the Rotmoons:

Juan Dee. Alchemist, seer, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher and advisor to The Rotmoons.

The Shattered Circle

In a clearing, deep in the endless malignant forest that covers the Harrowmark, there is a broken dais that is now being used for macabre purposes. The Shattered Circle, as it is known, is an evil place. 

The raw Death Magic that permeates the area is tangible even to those without magic sensitivity. For those with Wyrdsight the energies that swirl and eddy around the ruined dais are clearly malevolent and extremely powerful. Only a foolhardy wizard would attempt to tap into its power...

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The middle is the Balewind Vortex base filled with Citadel Skulls, surrounded by Shattered Dominion Large Basing Kit flagstones.

I sanded the base before undercoating it.

I undercoated it Chaos Black and zenithal base-coated Mechanicus Standard Grey. I painted the skulls with Ushabti Bone and washed them with Agrax Earthshade.

I dry-brushed the entire thing with Ushabti Bone then washed most of the stonework with Nuln Oil and a few remaining areas with Athonian Camoshade. Then I very lightly dry-brushed the entire thing with Ushabti Bone again.

I painted the sanded areas of earth with Steel Legion Drab (the Scenery Paint version) then dry-brushed that with Ushabti Bone.

Then it was just leaf litter and dead grass flock (the PVA glue for the leaves was still wet when I took these photos!).

Three NPC Warlocks (for our upcoming Malign Portents campaign "Thy Soul To Keep") Mr Book, Mr Bell and Mr Candle, explore the Shattered Circle:

Mr Bell

Mr Candle

Mr Book

Detail of Mr Book's book.

Pauli D'sguised

Fallow’s End House - part 2

This is a model I assembled around five years ago that has gone through a couple of transformations along the way. With Malign Portents on the way I have finished it and added it to my Harrowmark scenery as a "quick win".

It will get used as both a "normal" house in the village of Wortbad, and a lone house out in the wilds of the Harrowmark; on bleak Sorrow Fen or in the depths of the malignant forests.

I really enjoyed painting the tiny angels of death on the reliquaries on both sides of the house!

I picked the name "Fallow's End House" while I was building this house because I thought it sounded good. I later found out that there is a type of deer called the Fallow Deer, so when I was thinking about what to paint on the sign a deer skull seemed appropriately dark.

 

It's probably not good news on that pamphlet...

Details about the build are here.

Malign Portents art by Igor Sid

Awesomely atmospheric Malign Portents art by Igor Sid:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bwnGk

What I really love about these is the backgrounds - I'm going to have to work hard to make my table reflect some of this atmosphere I think!

The Ironfang Pirate Fleet, part 36: The Fireworkz

I have based a couple of Looted Great Cannon (that I use as Rock Lobbers in my Age of Sigmar Pirate Orruks army). Their gun carriages are made from Orruk Chariots. They have been in my army for years but I have only just got round to making bases for them. They always looked a bit lost without bases so I'm much happier with them now!

The timbers on their bases are chopped up Goblin Town floors (originally from the "Escape from Goblin Town" starter set for The Hobbit) with some added skulls from the awesome "Citadel Skulls" box.

These two are added to the smaller one I based in 2016 (!). The gun carriage for this one was made form cut up Screaming Bell timbers (left over from another project).

The Rotmoons

Update (09/01/2017) now with gun-crews!

The Chimeras

The Cleavermaws