Make-it Monday: Halloween 2013, Forest King and Raven Queen

A back-lit closeup of my final do

We hosted our annual Halloween party this past Saturday. We had probably a good 20-25 people at our house over the course of five hours with a lot of cool costume ideas happening. Among the many wonderful outfits at the party, we had the Swedish Chef, the pin-up Hilda, Jeeves and Wooster, Bob Ross and a happy tree. The costumes the Wife and I have been slaving over for the past month or so turned out spectacularly. 

Here is the Wife and I in our full get-up

and a close-up of the hooves

Unfortunately, our actual camera has been dead for a few weeks now, so we only had my cellphone, which was also serving as an mp3 player with the music for the evening, so our pictures were sparse and not of the greatest quality. Fortunately, some friends of ours also had cameras at the ready. So, here is a sampling of the other guests.

Though this pic wasn't taken at my party, my adorable niece showed up wearing this.

Brunhilda and Bat-Girl talk with Hank Venture -taken by me

Hank Venture meets zombie hiker and zombie frat boy -taken by my friend, Rene

Venture-Archer power combo -taken by my friend, Rene

A good full-length shot of the Wife's cloak -taken by my friend, Rene

 Oh, of course, before the party began, I had to take the obligatory duck-faced selfie.

UPDATE: 10/29/13
Our friend, Dan uploaded a couple new pics!

This is what I wake up to every morning! ; )

A MUCH better pic of the Wife and I

With another successful Halloween party in the bag, we must now consider whether we will ever wear these costumes again. If we get invited to a party next weekend, we might. Unfortunately, we don't get a lot of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. I am pondering the practicality of putting the outfit back on for karaoke next Friday... hmmm...

If this is the first Halloween post you've seen, check out how we made our costumes at the following links.

pt 1: The Idea

pt 2: Shopping

pt 3: Hoof Design

pt 4: Assembly Begins

pt 5: Hooves, Collar, Antlers, Crowns

pt 6: Final Assembly

Encounter Design: Party Planning

Two weeks ago, I ran the first real session of my second campaign. Because the session picked up just a few months after the climax of the first campaign, my players decided that the wanted to kick things off with a celebratory feast. Makes sense, given that they saved the world, and all.

Celebrations aren't new to this particular group of players. Their characters have thrown several shindigs over the course of their careers. In the past, however, its usually been just a matter of blowing some well-earned loot, bolstering their reputation, and the in-session commitment has involved a bit of flowery description and maybe ten minutes of our time.

This time was different. This time, they wanted something... several somethings, actually.

During a couple pre-campaign get togethers while the players were leveling, upgrading their base of operations and blowing their well earned loots on new shiny things, they hatched a plan for this party. They wanted to use it to advance a couple plot threads left over after the last campaign, and to hopefully kick off a couple more.

Specifically, they hoped to accomplish the following:

1. Reveal the secret royal identity of the party's rogue
2. Legitimize their ownership of their base of operations (gained while the land was in conflict)
3. See if they could find some insight into an ongoing demon-possession problem the party monk is dealing with
4. Look into purchasing an airship from the gnomes so they could go recover the remains of a dragon hoard they were forced to leave in a far off ruin during an earlier adventure
5. Look into opening a trade route via an abandoned pass in their territory to a neighboring country
6. Oh, and of course, endear themselves to the people

That's it, no bigs, right?

Well, of course there was no way I would let them reap the potential rewards to be gained from these various desires with just a bit of description and a few minutes time. There are big ticket items in there, and they would need to work for them! So, I decided to turn the celebration into a session-long encounter, complete with the very real possibility of horrible, embarrassing failure.

Here's how I did it:

TableTop Day!

I was pondering what to post today and about to settle on something half-hearted and half-baked when this announcement dropped into my Twitter feed with a resounding fanfare!

This is one of the most fantastic ideas I have seen/heard in a while, and I wholeheartedly intend to participate! I have not yet figured out exactly HOW I intend to participate (house party, game store party, bound to be overcrowded Café Mox party), or with whom (Usual game group, all friends ever, random strangers), but something is gonna happen!

If you are not familiar with TableTop, it is an online game review and demo show created by Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day. It has become one of my favorite ways to learn about new games. I also believe that online channels like Geek and Sundry (which hosts TableTop) produce some of the best television around.

If you love games, I encourage you to unplug the kids, break out the cards, dice and boards, and make a point to create your own tabletop fun on March 30. The first ever TableTop Day!