[Musings] Back in Black

Welcome to a different, darker shade of the Simple Blogger theme. It's probably the most overused theme, but I guarantee it will be better for your eyes when you open up the Vorpal Mace blog from your phone in the middle of the night.

Summer is on the loose, and it got pretty serious here this year. I already got a T-shirt tan just from walking to work, and the temperature within the flat goes easily above 30 °C if we aren't careful. Summers is also expensive. Even if we don't travel anywhere with the kid arriving in two weeks, there are some Kickstarters and new releases to drain your funds.

A few familiars from the first Rise of the Minons Kickstarter.
Don't hang out with wizards who have friends like these.

Even if I had to put my Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay preparations on hold, I can't say no to the next Dunkeldorf Kickstarter campaign: The Kingpin of Dunkeldorf. I'm not here for the thugs though (except for Lenny, he is a musthave), but for the witch hunters and mutants. While there are some great witch hunter and mutant minis available from other Oldhammer manufacturers, their numbers are still dwarfed compared to the variety in greenskin and dwarves.

Paul Smith of Creative Sculpt Studio has barely finished his Random Dungeon Encounters! campaign, he is already pushing another project forward, called Rise of the Minions 2! I have the entire lineup from the first batch, and they are some absolutely characterful little buggers that are a joy to paint. This is also a good opportunity to get some of his earlier sculpts. I was thinking about sitting this one out, because Paul said he has plans for champions of Order (a true niche among Oldhammer manufacturers), but that modron, mini-Cthulhu, and demon fish are hard to resist. Also, another Moonfaced Horror! You can't have enough Moonfaced Horrors!

Goodman Games also started their long-awaited DCC Dying Earth Kickstarter campaign. While I absolutely adore Vance's work and have high hopes that Goodman Games will do justice to the source material (just look at the contents of The Primer of Practical Magic: curses, manse-building, magical associations!), $50 with shipping will be a bit much for now. I'll be the first in line when it comes out next September, though.

And as usual, Venger is back again, with Cha'alt After Dark, going full R-rated with the sleazy stuff. What's more interesting for me though is that he got his hands on Encounter Critical, the best garage-made science-fiction fantasy rpg from 1979 (published in 2006). Cha'alt conversion with cheap black & white illustrations and typewriter text when?

The most important OSR news (probably of the year) has absolutely nothing to do with Kickstarters though. In fact, one of the best thing about it is that you don't have to risk your money on a Kickstarter campaign, and wait months or years to get the final product. Helvéczia - Melan's picaresque fantasy RPG - is available, right now. You can get it as a hefty boxed set, or a single rulebook. 

That's all for now. Some unknown guy called Unknown asked for some DCC RPG resources in the comment section of my last post, which were lost when I rebooted the blog in 2016. Expect some of those soonish.

[Kickstarter] They Came For Your Money

Possible future picture of PoN after
The Palace of Unquiet Repose is released.

The best thing about the pandemic is that all the money I couldn't spend on travel can be blown on ebay and Kickstarter. And July started all gun blazing on the Kickstarter front.

There are 4 days left of the Dunkeldorf: The Prancing Peacock campaign, which I don't want to waste any more word on - I have already talked enough about it.

There are 3 days left of the Giant Slayer!! campaign by Paul Smith (aka Creative Sculpt Studio / Dark Hollow Miniatures), who has been churning out all kinds of cool Oldhammer miniatures in the last few years, from chaos warriors through beastmen to badass mutant mollusks. Despite its name the Giant Slayer!! campaign offers more than a rude giant slayer standing atop a giant's head - which is a scene near and dear to me, because it pretty much happened in my high school Warhammer FRP 2e campaign too more than a decade ago. There are also two lovely valkyrie giant slayers wearing various levels of armour, and a valkyrie sorceress apprentice inspired by Fantasia.

A few days ago Prince of Nothing announced on the Age of Dusk blog the inevitable coming of The Palace of Unquiet Repose. The campaign hasn't even started yet, but the hype is real. Will the dutch luminary's magnum opus shake up the slumbering OSR scene? Will this nordic pundit become the long-waited messiah ushering a new golden age of old-school gaming? And most importantly: will he write a fair and humble review about his own work on his blog?

That's a pretty solid start for the second half of 2020.

[Miniatures] Dunkeldorf Prototypes and Painting Hans the Joyful

Like last year, the fine folk running King Games DK sent me some promotional material for their new line of Dunkeldorf miniatures. The box was larger than I expected: besides the resin prototypes, stickers, and some art, it also contained a cool mug, which will surely see some use during my painting sessions. The miniatures I received were a cupboard, some containers with food, Philipp der Pfau (the mascot of the Prancing Peacock inn), Hans the Joyful (a merry patron holding a tankard of foaming beer), and Franz the Mutant (your quintessential tentacled Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay mutant). Writing a preview about my first impressions felt half-assed, so I decided to set my current projects aside, paint one of the prototypes, and write a "How It's Made" special about the process.

From Denmark with love.

Have no illusions: this won't be a tutorial. I started painting miniatures only three years ago. I work slow, I don't use any fancy techniques, I don't know much about colour theory, and sometimes I don't even touch my brushes for weeks. It is a secondary hobby for me to supplement tabletop rpgs, and also a way to chill - until I spill out a pot or drink from the wrong mug. So instead of lessons, get ready for a recollection of my fumblings accompanied by rants and shitty photos.

As I mentioned above, the minis are made of resin, a material I'm not too fond of. Despite my prejudice I was pleasently surprised with what I got: the details were crisp, the material felt sturdy, and the only preparation I had to do was washing them well with warm water and dishwasher liquid to remove the remaining mould release agent. Of course I managed to drop a mini in my mug of water, and as I hastily reached for it Archimedes' principle kicked in, and I flooded the entire table.

The prototypes drying in company of some
Creative Sculpt Studio beastmen and slimes.

After everything dried I glued the minis unto the bases they came with. Here I ran into a small issue with the resin: the tabs were very thin compared to the slots. In case of metal you can bend it with a plier until it fits, but with the rigid resin that wasn't an option. In the end I glued Hans and Franz to the base by the foot with some UHU super glue. I prefer gel super glues, but alas I couldn't find it anywhere, so I had to go with liquid, which was almost empty, and its tube was broken leaking glue all over my desk and fingers. It felt like elementary school DIY classes all over again.

Silence before the storm.

Once I was done with the bases I fixed the figurines on a box with Blu Tack and grabbed my brand new rattle can of Army Painter Matt Black Primer to prime them. I usually cover my minis black, because I work from dark to light colours, plus accidentally leaving some black in the recesses doesn't stand out like a sore thumb. I shook the can vigorously (dare I say violently) until I heard a rattling under the bottle cap. It turned out the cap came off - an unprecedented accident so far for me.

After fixing the cap I put on my mask (originally given to me to fight Papa Nurgle, but I'm flexible), and primed the minis with short bursts until they were covered nice and smooth from all angles. Something I learned at my own expense is when it's hot it's better to spray from a shorter distance, otherwise the paint dries before it hits the mini, resulting in a rough surface. I didn't repeat that mistake this time. I left the minis out for half an hour. I would have left them out longer weren't for the coming rain. Nevermind, I can endure the smell of acryllic. Heck, I even enjoy it a bit. It might have something to do with helping my father spraying cars when I was a child.

I see a mini and I want it painted black...

At this point I was still unsure which figurine should I paint. Franz the Mutant is a far more interesting chap, he looks like someone stepping right out of The Enemy Within campaign. There were already plenty of images floating around the internet of him though, so I went with Hans the Joyful instead.

Hans the Joyful still looking grim.

The time has come to come up with a colour scheme. The official images show Hans wearing a yellow shirt and a lovely purple doublet. I decided to do something different: my Hans is a burgher wearing more mundane, dirty colours. After some Googling I decided to give him an off-white shirt, red doublet, and black boots. I did hesitate a bit about the red because of the awful quality of most red paints.

Googling for references.

After I figured out the colours I assembled the triads for them. For those unfamiliar with the term, a triad consists three shades of a colour which you will use to build up layers from dark to light. Some manufacturers, like Wargames Foundry and Reaper Miniatures sell their paints in triads, which is extremely helpful for beginners. I have found a handy reference for Vallejo triads too on The Bolter & Chainsword forums, though the more experienced I become the more I diverge from them. The Paint Color Comparison Chart and Miniature Paints Color Matcher are also invaluable tools for picking colours. 

The colours I used for Hans - from dark to light, with additional comments:

• Skin: Foundry Flesh triad. I used to have ssues early with getting skintones right. After I got tired of fooling around with the bazillion skintones I already had I bought the Foundry flesh triads, and never looked back. Because Foundry paints are relatively thin I don't paint them directly over black. For the skin I slapped on a layer of VMC[1] Flat Brown first.
• Shirt, feather: Foundry Boneyard triad. My go-to warm white, be it skeleton, linen, fur, etc. Similar to the skin, I painted it over a layer of VMC Flat Brown.
• Doublet, beret: VGC[2] Terracotta shaded with a mix of Citadel Druchii Violet and Agrax Earthshade, VGC Gory Red, VGC Bloody Red. I washed the terracotta with the Druchii Violet and Agrax Earthshade mix to darken it a bit. The glossiness of VGC Gory Red made painting the transparent VGC Bloody Red over it a pain in the ass. If I could do it again I would go with my VMC reds instead.
• Boots, belt, trim: CdA[3] Black, CdA Iron Grey, CdA Dark Grey. In the end I shaded the leather with a wash made from VGI[4] Black, to make the transition smoother and the black leather feel more... leathery.
• Belt buckle: CdA Brass shaded with VGI Brown, CdA Brass, CdA Bronze. I bought these as parts of a bronze triad, but the middle tone (CdA Dwarven Bronze) was rubbish and didn't fit the rest of the colours anyway. The shade and light colours on the other hand are great (my girlfriend calls CdA Brass her favorite gold), so I ended up darkening the CdA Brass with brown inks and washes, and using the CdA Brass as the midtone.
• Beer foam: P3 Rucksack Tan mixed with P3 Moldy Ochre, Foundry Boneyard 5B, Foundry Boneyard 5C. I did not want to use the entire Boneyard triad again, so I tried to mix up something more amberlike for the beer. Ironically it ended up very similar to the Foundry Boneyard 5A. Oh well...
• Tankard: VGC Charred Brown, VMC Flat Brown, VGC Beasty Brown.
• Tankard metal rim: P3 Pig Iron shaded with VGI Black, P3 Pig Iron, P3 Cold Steel.
• Trousers: P3 Greatcoat Grey, P3 Greatcoat Grey mixed with P3 Ironhull Grey, P3 Ironhull Grey.

The tools of my trade:

• Citadel S Layer: My go-to workhorse brush since I started painting. Has a good tip, it's fine for layering and highlighting too. I call it the "slayer brush".
• Citadel M Base: For painting larger surfaces, especially during colour blocking. Its bristles got scruffy after first use, and I couldn't fix them ever since.
• Citadel S Base: For those times the Citadel M Base brush is too big. Seems to be better than its big brother, it only has a single bristle that doesn't know its place.
• Citadel S Dry: Solid drybrush I guess, I've been using this for a while, and the previous one had a decent lifespan too. I wish it was smaller.
• Windsor & Newton Series #7 Sable Brush 0: I fucking love this brush. Sharp and short, perfect for painting small details - like eyes, tattoos, lips, eyebrows.

Once I had my paints, tools, mug of water, and dirt cheap homemade wet palette ready, I started colour blocking with thin layers of the darkest shades. I try to do colour blocking as neat as possible, though no matter how precise I am there is always something to clean up - like the face around the eyes. When doing the eyes I first paint them the same colour as the face, then darken the recesses around them with a brown ink. This outline makes the eyes pop, and they also won't look like stickers on a plastic puppet.

Damn, you're ugly.

Next I started layering with midtones. I only left the deeper recesses dark. Hans had some nice folds on his clothes and salient facial features that made picking out the higher parts easy. When I couldn't figure out what should be emphasized I drybrushed the area slightly with the midtone to highlight what's worth picking out. I keep having problems with layering boots for some reason, so I usually drybrush them entirely. Otherwise I avoid drybrushing if possible, because it's hard to control and can mess up neighbouring colours. I neatened up the area around the eyes, and used my sharpest brush to pick out the eyeballs using Foundry Boneyard 5C, and  the teeth Foundry Boneyard 5B (he doesn't brush them very often).

Now even creepier with white eyes.

After finishing the midtones I began highlighting the topmost parts with the lightest colours, using layering for larger surfaces and edge highlighting for the edges.This was the time when I noticed, that the hair feels more like thick strands of spaghetti. More and thinner locks, or not having a shoulder length hair would help a great deal in avoiding the hair looking like a rasta. The feather's barbs were awkward too, but that's less visible, and when I can't find a feature I can just paint it in where I feel it should be. In the end it's the shades what make your miniature feel three dimensional.

I used my sharpest brush to paint a thin black vertical line over the eyes. It's a good idea to do this with the iris being closer to the nose. The eyes will be assymetric anyway, but with the irises leaning outward the mini will feel squint-eyed - though in case of Hans I toyed with the idea of doing so to make him look really wasted.

Still in need of some final touches.

After all the above I took some time to fix small mistakes and paint missing features - eg. I tinted the lower lip with some mix of red and pink, and evened out the irises using Foundry Boneyard 5C. Once done I sealed Hans with a layer of Vallejo Polyurethane Glossy Varnish, left him dry until the morning, fixed some more mistakes that revealed themselves in the light of the morning Sun, then finished the entire process by sealing him with Vallejo Polyurethane Matt Varnish.

I was lucky enough that my friends fucked up plenty of varnishings before I wanted to seal a mini for the first time, and they wree kind enough to tell me which varnishes to avoid. Initially I used Coat d'Arms varnishes. They were pretty good, but noticably dulled the colours and ate the highlights. Later I discovered Vallejo's polyurethane varnishes, which didn't mess with my work and dried much faster.

Ready to have a good time!

Hans the Joyful is a rather simple, yet characterful miniature full of potential. I'm considering getting another one to paint it squint-eyed, drool leaking from his mouth, vomit spot on his boots, black hole among his teeth. Life is too short to repaint the same stuff over and over again though! The Prancing Peacock campaign is full of other intriguing characters, and I still have plenty of unpainted minis all over my room. The next one victim will be Franz the Mutant. I might write a post about him too, but I can't promise to finish that before the campaign ends.

If you want to see what others did with the prototypes, check out #dunkeldorf on Instagram, or The Dunkeldorf Community on facebook. If you want to know more about the project visit dunkeldorf.eu or the official Dunkeldorf Miniatures facebook page.

By the way I found my gel superglue between my shelves and the desk when I dropped something...

[1] Vallejo Model Color

[2] Vallejo Game Color

[3] Coat d'Arms

[4] Vallejo Game Ink

[Kickstarter] Dunkeldorf: The Prancing Peacock

Last year King Games from Denmark had a kickass Kickstarter campaign to produce a line of medieval townsfolk miniatures heavily influenced by the Warhammer/Oldhammer style. The second campaign called the Prancing Peacock started just today, with a focus on the titular tavern and its patrons. This time the lineup is a mix of hand and digital sculpted minis, though I didn't notice it by my own thanks to the consistent style. I still have a huge pile of unpainted Dunkeldorf metal and resin on my shelves, but that won't hold me back from supporting this one too because I'm a sucker for good old-school metal minis I can use for grimdark low fantasy campaigns.

When the first Kickstarter started I had an interview with Nicki about the project, who was kind enough to send me some samples about what to expect. I just got a notification with a tracking number from PostNord, so expect another preview in the coming weeks. Time to get a rattle can of black primer...

Nomen est omen, there is even a peacock mini!

Grim and Perilous Goodies

The post office must have sensed I was considering kicking
down the door on them when they delivered all of these.

A few weeks ago the Dunkeldorf Kickstarter (which I interviewed Nicki about) has launched, and was funded within the blink of an eye. The original goal was surpassed ten times, new stretch goals are revealed at a steady pace, and the campaign is still far from over - so in case you were hesitating to jump on the bandwagon or not, it's still not too late to make up your mind.

As classy as they are, King Games sent me a promotional package, which arrived on the 27th of February. Thank you very much again! Also kudos for the Hungarian post office for delivering my stuff only a few days later than expected - the Lulu order I also received that day was around two weeks late. The little black box contained the early casts for Herman the burgomeister, Gunther the barber surgeon, Berta the ratcatcher, plus some stickers and leaflets.

A crap photo of the triumvirate. NSFW because of Herman.

I gave away Herman and Gunther to friends, and had plans to paint Bertha, but as usual, life found a way to hinder me in doing anything fun with my free time, so all I can give you are some shitty photos. I love them. The sculpts are great, they are full of character without being overly detailed. Herman is probably the best in this regard, with his obese body, double chin, smug face, and bulging codpiece. My favorites though are the small rats hanging from Helga's man-catcher (or rat-catcher?) and belt - painting them will be challenging, but I'm persistent in doing such small details, probably to compensate for my lack of skill. Despite being from a test run the minis were light on seamlines and had no flash.

Dejan's art delivers as usual.

ZWEIHÄNDER is on a roll too. The MAIN GUACHE pdf has been updated with art. Like the core book its a thing to behold, and full of content - mostly of the crunchy kind: professions, equipment, vehicle rules, alchemy, spells, mutations, etc. There is a lot about daemons too, but interestingly no new monsters. Expect an in-depth review in the near-future (hopefully I can do it in a single post this time). Grim & Perilous Studios also announced that the ZWEIHÄNDER family expands with yet another game besides Tetsubo in the future: Colonial Gothic. While neither of them is my cup of tea, I welcome this trend - covering more ground and styles is exactly what I would like to see from Cubicle-7 too.

Speaking of Cubicle-7... While my ZWEIHÄNDER campaign is crawling, the WFRP4e campaign I'm playing in seems to be pickig up pace as our party of three (the elf wizard, the bounty hunter, and the flagellant) are trying to make a living in Übersreik. It's a well balanced company: the elf has some cool spells, my bounty hunter is good at fighting, while the flagellant is an excellent cannon fodder - in the least two adventures he was pulled from the sewers back to the shallyans while leaving a red trail of blood on the cobble stones after being backstabbed by a goblin, was almost torn apart by undead wolves during his berserker rage, and lost a toe too. Thank Sigmar the worst I had was a wound infection! Time to tie up some loose ends and leave for Marienburg.

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[Interview] Nicki Irmark talks about Dunkeldorf Miniatures

A blood moon rises upon Dunkeldorf heralding
the doom which comes to my wallet.

The Oldhammer movement is basically old-school Warhammer's equivalent of the OSR: its goal is to revive interest in classic Warhammer games and keep their spirit alive. Old miniatures can be hard to come buy and are expensive, so to fulfill the needs of the community dozens of manufacturers jumped the bandwagon and flooded the market with excellent figurines following the classic style. There are orks, goblins, daemons, goblins, chaos dwarves, and goblins galore! I'm not a wargamer though. I'm a roleplayer, who runs a Zweihänder campaign, and plays in a WFRP4e campaign. I don't need dozens of goblins, but on the other hand I need minis for rat catchers, stumbling drunkards, filthy whores, dirty peasants. Of course I can buy generic renaissance and medieval commoners, but most of them are nowhere as characterful as Citadel's 1987 Villagers, 1987 Travelling Players, or Mordheim frenzied mob.

Enter Dunkeldorf Miniatures, a Denmark-based initiative that was meant to satisfy the hunger for Oldhammer townsfolk. The team consists of Nicki Irmark and Nana Kronmark of King Games, the illustrator Mustafa Bekir of Spevna Studio, and the sculptor Sonny Bundgaard from Imitation of Life Miniatures. Their first Kickstarter campaign will begin on the 5th of March and plans to bring the inhabitants of Dunkeldorf to life in form of 28mm white metal miniatures.

The project was near and dear to me from the first time I heard about it. Last week I took the opportunity to ask some questions from Nicki about Dunkeldorf and the people behind it.

When and how did you get involved in tabletop gaming?

I believe I was 10 years old, and my parents, my sister and a friend of mine were attending a yearly event in my hometown, it was basically just all the businesses being open until midnight, along with a lot of street events. So my friend and me were perusing the different stores and got into a store that sold hobby supplies. In the middle of the room they had set up a table with Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It was the 5th Edition, Bretonnia vs. Lizardmen. I get so nostalgic when looking at the box art!. Both me and my friend were immediately hooked, we both bought the box along with a paint set. We spent all the money we had saved up for the evening, and just wanted to go back home to look at it! Later that same evening I painted my first miniature, a Chaos Warrior that was included in the paint set. It looked horrible, but I thought it looked pretty good back then! ;) I've been into miniatures (Primarily fantasy) ever since!

What games besides WHFB5e had a big impact on you? What do you play nowadays?

When thinking back, I believe HeroQuest had the biggest impact on me. I played it a lot with a friend who owned it, but I never actually got it myself. I loved all the dungeons accessories and of course the miniatures. I believe that has carried over for me when playing RPGs, I can't imagine playing without terrain, dungeon accessories and miniatures.

I haven't really had that same "wow" feeling with a board game, until recently when Nana, my wife and me received Gloomhaven. What a thrill it was to open that box and play the game! Nana and I play a bunch of co-op board games. But we mostly enjoy playing RPGs. We've been playing WFRP, Pathfinder, and D&D.

WFRP has always been our favourite, we love the setting and for the last couple of years we've been playing with our own homemade ruleset. We're gearing up to play 4th edition now though – We haven't started our campaign yet as we're finishing up a D&D campaign and also spending a lot of time working on Dunkeldorf!

Five of the twelve Dunkeldorf miniatures posing for a group shot.

Seeing the Dunkeldorf minis the influence of WFRP is obvious. But where does the idea of Dunkeldorf come from? Was it a place you used before in rpgs, or was it created from scratch for your miniature line?

We're definitely influenced by WFRP. Nana and I have talked a lot about having our own line of miniatures, for several years actually. And we have always talked about the lack of "modern" WFRP townsfolk. There's a lot of Oldhammer/Citadel townsfolk, some really awesome miniatures that we also have in our collection. Unfortunately they're extremely expensive to buy nowadays, as they're no longer in production, many of them are recasts and finally, they're pretty small compared to newer miniatures. So, we decided if we ever do move forward with our own line, we wanted to create townsfolk/rpg miniatures that could be used in WFRP and of course other fantasy settings as well.

We have never had an actual town in our campaign called Dunkeldorf. But most of the characters, the Dunkeldorf background story and the character stories – All of that is straight out of our own campaign! (And it all takes a pretty grim turn all of a sudden, something we'll hopefully get to explore and share in future Kickstarters!)

Bertha the Rat Catcher and
 her large but grumpy cat. 

You mention having your own line of minis was a long time dream of yours. You had to gather your party before venturing forth, though! How did you meet and get Sonny Bundgaard and Mustafa Bekir on board?

Nana and I knew Sonny through the work with our shop, King Games. We knew that Sonny had some sculpting experience and knew a bit about the casting process as well. When we talked to Sonny about our upcoming project, it was mainly to pick his brain, ask his advice and such. But as we talked more and more, it became clear that Sonny was pretty hooked on the project and we started talking about him doing the sculpting work. And now I can't imagine not having him on board, he has really captured the essence of what we imagined, and we're continually impressed by his work.

After we had Sonny on the team, we needed sketches for him to work from. Nana and I had already envisioned that Dunkeldorf should be more than just a line of miniatures. We wanted the stories and we wanted proper artwork, not just quick sketches. We felt that we needed to find a person that had the same kind of passion for these sort of characters as us. So the obvious choice was an Oldhammer guy. Lo and behold, Mustafa's artwork popped up in my Facebook feed from The Oldhammer Artwork FB group. I contacted Mustafa, and he was crazy about the project. And not only did we get some awesome artwork from Mustafa, we also got a very nice, helpful and talented person to be a part of the project. He has been a large driving force behind the project with a ton of ideas and input.

We're really excited to have both of these talented guys on the team, and we hope to continue working with them on Dunkeldorf in the future. :)

What would you like to do after the inhabitants? Monsters? Adventurers? Something else?

Well, we have a lot of ideas. But things can still change. So… The thing that makes Dunkeldorf special, is that a sort of supernatural event happens every year, a moon eclipse (a Blood Moon) and it can only be seen in Dunkeldorf and the surrounding area. This event attracts a lot of visitors and astronomers and such. The town has a yearly festival celebrating the event. The Dunkeldorf stories (and the RPG Source Book we plan on making in the future) take place during this festival. Did I mention that we're big fans of Shadows over Bogenhafen? Everything seems to be going just dandy, until the Blood Moon continues to linger in the sky, night after night. Weird things start happening in Dunkeldorf, many of the townsfolk start acting different.

So, as we see it, the first Kickstarter is how things are when the festival begins. Our plan for the second Kickstarter (Hopefully the first is a success so the second one is possible!) is with a focus on the actual festival. Entertainers and such, still with a focus on townsfolk, but with the introduction of some of the weird stuff that's starting to happen in Dunkeldorf. There's several villains and villain-like characters in our story of course, and many of these are easily corrupted by the Blood Moon. So, some of these characters could possibly show up as mutants or cultists. While some of the "heroes" could show up in combat poses. Erika for example, a former soldier stuck in a smithy, day-dreaming about swinging her Zweihander again. And! Then we have the surrounding area. Lots of stuff happening just outside of Dunkeldorf as well. So yea, we have a lot of ideas for the future. But, one step at a time. Our first priority is to make our first Kickstarter a success! :)

Regarding monsters, they're not a high priority for us, as we feel like there's a lot of those to choose from on the market. We love the minis from Knightmare Miniatures for example, they would fit right in with our miniatures. There's also The OS Miniatures Company and their Circus of Corruption. And of course many others!

A finely sculpted halfling, alas
without sausage in his hands.

What kind of sourcebook can you imagine about Dunkeldorf?

The sourcebook would be a book that any GM/DM in a fantasy group could pick up and have a ready-made town along with the area surrounding it. It would contain lots of adventure hooks, maps, artwork, rumours, minor encounters/jobs and an adventure/campaign. All the characters will of course be featured in the book, so those that play with miniatures can pull out the real Dunkeldorf townsfolk/NPCs/characters and use them for their sessions if they wish.

We obviously have a lot of love for WFRP, but we want to make sure that Dunkeldorf fits into most fantasy settings. So we decided early on not to include blackpowder weapons for example. But we'll make a lot of things open, so it's easy for the GM to add his own stuff, but not so open that you necessarily need a ton of planning.

That sounds like something right up in my alley! How is the gaming community in Denmark by the way? What games are popular?

Glad to hear that! I have to admit that I'm not an expert on what is the most popular any longer. But we have a bunch of great hobby/gaming stores in Denmark where players can meet up and play. Games Workshop is still very popular here and I think that GW games take the crown as to what is played the most. I feel like there's many RPG'ers in Denmark as well though, but they tend to be a bit more "secretive/not noticeable" as they're mostly playing at home and not in a club/store (some are of course!).

How big is the interest in Dunkeldorf there?

There's definitely interest! We've gotten really good feedback so far and it's so great to know that other gamers are into the project we're working on! We have also talked to a few Danes who don't even have a particular and immediate use for the miniatures, but they plan on backing the Kickstarter anyway just to support us and a Danish line of miniatures. That's such an awesome feeling to know that. :)

I think this will be kind of a "Sophie's choice" for you... Which is your favorite Dunkeldorf miniature so far and why?

I love Old Tully! The character is based on a crazy beggar from our own WFRP campaign. And I really wanted to do an homage to Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull (if you can call it that, taking the end result into consideration!). So he's this sort of creepy guy, lurking around the streets (in dark alleyways and such) just waiting for his chance to jump out and scare unsuspecting townsfolk, he'll then almost stalk them, playing his flute loudly right next to them until they give him a coin or two.

I've also grown very fond of Haelga, the town watch captain, who originates from the far north (viking type) and has a hard time letting her past go. I think the sculpt by Sonny has turned out so great. And the end result is a very unique miniature.

Okay, final question! What would you do if one morning you woke up in Dunkeldorf?

If I woke up in Dunkeldorf, I'd probably try to get on the Burgomeister's good side. With him in power I'd never feel safe if I wasn't! But then again, even if you're on his good side you may not be totally safe. Might be best to actually just get the hell out of there! ;)

Thank you for taking your time to answer my questions, and good luck with the Kickstarter!

If you want to know more about the project visit dunkeldorf.eu or the official Dunkeldorf Miniatures facebook page.

Update: The Kickstarter campaign has started, and is already funded!

You can't have proper Oldhammer feel without pop culture references.