A Very Lego Christmas: Week 2

And now for the continuing adventures of A Very Lego Christmas, my interpretation of the story contained within the 2014 Lego Advent Calendar. You can also check out Week 1 here.

December 7 (a date, which will live in infamy): The cop tells his dog to turn in his badge and bone for failing to protect the house from the scarf and hat burglar.

A Very Lego Christmas: Week 1

This year, I once again received a Lego advent calendar for my birthday. Last year, I got Lego Star Wars. This year was Lego City. Upon opening the first little bin in the calendar, I noticed something amusing. December 1 contained a mini-figure of a police officer in tactical gear, holding a mug. However, there wasn't just one mug in the set. There were two… and two hats as well.

At some point in the years since I was a child, Lego has wised up to the fact that small pieces are easily lost. So they now include an extra or two among the smallest pieces in any set. With most normal sets, this isn't particularly odd, but when dealing with the VERY limited number of pieces in an advent set, it can produce some amusing results.

I found myself faced with the spectacle of one cop, two cups… Thus, double-fisting cop was born! There is a gaming adage that "no adventure plot survives first contact with the players", which was adapted from a military saying that "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy." Well, I am here to declare that no Lego set survives first contact with the imagination.

I snapped a picture of my newly invented character of the double-fisting cop, and as the days progressed, and new sets were built, I added to his story with amusing (to me at least) results. I plan to keep this up throughout the holiday season, and will share the unfolding tales here.

So now, I give you week 1 of A Very Lego Christmas.

December 1: Meet Double-fisting Cop. He's too drunk to pick up his hat.

December 2: The cop has a cozy fireplace and has switched to more exotic beverages.

December 3: When drunk, the cop thinks it's amusing to feed human femurs to his dog.

December 4: Stepping outside for some air, the cop is accosted by a snowman
who attempts to mug him with a veggie club.

December 5: The standoff escalates as the cop and snowman go for a nearby weapons cache.

December 6: Little does the cop know that the snowman is merely there to distract him
 from the robber who is stealing his hats, scarves and holiday booze.

I plan to post weekly updates of A Very Lego Christmas as the story continues to grow and warp into an absurd tale of holiday shenanigans.

Make-it Monday: Matrimon, the WED-bot

We are just under two months out from the wedding, and are definitely starting to hit crunch time. For this week's Make-it Monday, I decided to make something awesome that also forwards the goal of being ready for the wedding by the wedding. Therefore, this week I give you Matrimon, the WED-bot!

 For those of you who are new to the blog, or who have just not been paying attention, the Fiancee and I are having a Lego themed wedding. One of the first decorations we bought was a lego cake topper, but it was a little conventional (boring) for our tastes. We came up with the brilliant idea to design a cake-cutting mech suit for the little bride and groom to ride around in. Rather than setting it on top of the cake, we plan to pose it to the side with its confectionary buzz-saw ready to strike the first slice.

We still wanted to have something on top, so I also worked up a lego heart with our initials in it. "G" for "Sporkchop" and "E" for "Fiancee".

Darth Nicholas

My lovely sister gave me a Lego Star Wars advent calendar for my birthday back in November. Now, I am a big fan of Lego, Star Wars (at least the original trilogy) and Christmas. I am also a fan of Lego Star Wars and potentially of Lego Christmas, and at least ironically entertained by Star Wars Christmas but mixing all three together creates a melange of flavors that is eclectic, dissonant and possessed of some very bizarre potentials... and Lego appears eager to explore these odd potentials to their fullest.

Now, most of the advent entries are what you would expect from a Lego Star Wars advent calendar: mini-spaceship models and Star Wars-themed mini-figs, many of them related to the scenes set on the ice planet, Hoth. The grand finale of the calendar, however, takes things to the next level. The sets for December 23 and 24 realize the full flavor potential of Lego Star Wars Christmas. The set for the 23rd is a snowman R2 droid, and for the 24th... Darth Maul dressed as Santa Claus holding a snow shovel. The mind reels.

Okay... maybe this is actually a step up from the Star Wars Christmas special.

Merry Christmas, happy Life Day, etc.

Lego Hydra!

Last night, I was idly watching Minecraft videos on YouTube while tinkering with my Legos IRL. I came up with my latest Lego D&D creature creation. The dreaded Hydra of Brix!

I'm particularly proud of the wiggly toes on the front legs

Should my players be worried? Plan ways to counter an imminent hydra attack? Pshaw! No, of course not! Why would I telegraph my nefarious plans over the internet?

Player Paranoia Levels: [GROWING]

Anyway, if you weren't around these parts in April of 2011, you can check out some of my other Lego D&D creations here. (I should note that the celestial bee at the link is actually the work of my player, naughtsauce)

Happy Friday, everyone!

Lord of the Bricks

Clearly, I need more Legos!

Check out the description and photos of a project that recreated many of the iconic sets and scenes from the Lord of the Rings for the 2011 BrickWorld in Chicago.

L is for Legos!

Yes, I am a grown man with a master's degree and a full-time job... and yes, I still play with Legos! As a solidly middle-class GM, without a lot of money to blow on gaming minis, paint supplies, etc. I often turn to creative, low-cost solutions when trying to represent things on my gaming table. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with D&D, the game does not come with game pieces)

One of my favorite techniques for whipping up custom characters, beasties and objects is to build them from Lego. I keep an assortment of Lego mini-figure parts in my DM toolkit so that I can put together characters on the fly. I also have a bin of bricks near the gaming table for creating other impromptu elements.

Bucket o' heads!

Here are just a few of the many guest appearances Legos have made in my game:

Lego treant is full of EVIL!

I hear their vision is based on movement.
Maybe if we don't move, it wont eat us.

Landshark!

 

 

When faced with a celestial giant bee, don't stab it...
you'll just make it mad.