Eight-Minute Empire

Eight-Minute Empire, published by Red Raven Games, is a beautifully simple game. It comes in a 6 x 9 inch box with some very nice box art on the cover. Inside the sturdy box you will find five sets of 14 small wooden cubes and wooden disks, 1 double-sided board, 42 cards, 44 coin tokens, 10 goods tokens and the rule book. All the components of the game, including the cardboard ones are of good quality.

The board folds out to 10.5 by 8.5 inch map of two fantasy lands. Like was mentioned above the map is double sided so you can try your hand at controlling two separate worlds. There is a third map, a map of Europe that can be downloaded from Board Game Geek for even more verity.

The title of the game is a bit misleading, unless the authors meant that you could read through the rulebook in about eight minutes, which seems about right. One round of the game will take you between twenty and thirty minutes and for longer play, it is recommended that you play through the game three times and add up your “victory” points from each round.

The game is card driven. Cards are chosen by the player form the six cards, placed at the top of the game board and are always available. Once one is chosen by a player the remaining cards are shifted toward the left and a new card is added to those that are available. Cards are chose by each player according to what they are willing to pay or the player’s individual needs or strategies.

The object of the game is too tally-up as many victory points by the end of the game. A game is ended when player‘s accumulate a set of cards, that depending on the number of players that are playing. For a two player that is 13 cards. You gain victory points by the number of continents, territories, and goods you control by the play of the thirteenth card.

It looks like it should be fun game to play and I hope to get a try at it over the weekend.

The Impetus for H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu?

It is said that the stimulus for Lovercraft’s The Call of Cthulhu was found in Lord Tennyson’s 1830 poem The Kraken. He might have also been influenced by William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the Glen-Carrig, where a creature having some of the same characteristics as the Cthulhu creature is described. In deed Lovercraft even mentioned that he had read the work of Hodgson, although Lovercraft went a lot further in the description of his creature and even added associative mysticisms.
"The Kraken" (1830)
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Eastern Dragons-Lindworms

Lindworms can be found on the empty steppes of central Asia. Lindworms can grow up to 30 feet long and up to 8 and 10 feet tall. The Lindworm has two feet towards the top of its body, and a set of scales that runs down the middle of its slender body from its head terminating to an arrow head shaped and pointed tail. Lindworms are often found in shades of green, pale orange or a sandy yellow.

The Ghost Pirates

"Olden memories that shine against death's night.
Quite stars of sweet enchantments,
That are seen In Life's lost distances…"

The World of Dreams

"All along the port rails there was a queer, undulating grayness that moved downward inboard, and spread over the desks. As I looked, I found that I saw more clearly, in a most extraordinary way. And, suddenly, all the moving grayness resolved into hundreds of strange men. In the half-light, they looked unreal and impossible, as though there had come upon us the inhabitants of some fantastic dream-world. They swarmed in upon us in great wave of murderous, living shadows."

Chapter 16: The Ghost Pirates; The Ghost Pirates, William Hope Hodgson

This quote was found in the last of a trilogy by William Hope Hodgson’s, The Ghost Pirates. All three of Hodgson’s set were fabulous, but I did prefer the first and the last in the series best; their being sea yarns.

Eastern Dragons: Tibetan Dragon

There are four distinct species of eastern dragons; they are the Tibetan, Lindworms, Asian Lung, and the Chinese Lung. The first I will be reporting on is the Tibetan Dragon.

The Tibetan Dragon was found in higher elevations of central Asia. The Tibetan Dragons are mostly red in color and can grow up to ten to twelve feet high and up to forty feet long. They are long slender creatures with scales running down the length of their backs. They have four feet and with five toes. Each toe includes a razor sharp claw. They have what seems like whiskers around their mouths and sport a set of horns on the top of their heads. Their main pray is the Himalayan Yeti a large ape like creature that also abides in higher elevations of the Himalayan Mountains.

“After all, the strangest and maddest of myths are often merely symbols or allegories based upon truth.”

H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Blogger’s web editor can be quirky at times. In order to have consistent look I have taken the original post down and have hand-coded the post.

25mm Reaper Miniatures Sea Aberration

This aberration is part man and part fish. Is it a freak of nature or a genetics experiment gone badly? Whatever the case, I would not want to meet up with this creature while out scuba diving. This 25mm miniature is from Reaper Miniatures Aquatic Familiars II pack. This was one of the miniatures on my January Projects list.

There is one more from this collection that I need to complete, but I cannot find a paint scheme that I am happy with.

Quotes from The Shadow Over Innsmouth- The Esoteric Order of Dagon

"A peculiar secret cult had gained force here (in Innsmouth) and had engulfed all the orthodox churches. It was called the 'The Esoteric Order of Dagon' and was undoubtedly a debased quasi-pagan thing imported from the East a century before."

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Villains Wiki-Esoteric Order of Dagon

IMEX 1/72-25mm Eastern Friendly Indians

The Eastern Friendly Indians set is part of IMEX’s American History series and includes a combination of 43 figures and scenic pieces. The quality of the figures is not stellar, however these miniatures would work well setting up an Indian village diorama.

The Astonishing Adventurers of the Handler a Graphic Novel

The four adventurers set off to a distant land, a land full of darkness, and contend with one melee after another with all types of creatures. The Astonishing Adventurers of the Handlers is a 26 page graphic novel. The publication is available through Drive-Thru-Comics for .50, that’s right, a half a dollar.

The novel is formatted as a PDF with printing and copy and paste disabled. The novel includes fine graphics and a story that kept my interest.

Attributes for the Leech Wyrm Sea Monster

I found this miniature at Hoards O’ Bits; it is from their Games Workshop Dreadfleet collection. This miniature will eventually be coupled with the set of Cogs and other ships, also from Hoards O’ Bits Dreadfleet collection. It might also be pressed into service with my Pirates of the Curse of Davy Jones game.

The Leech Wyrm has the following attributes:

The Leech Wyrm can move 3 if under water and 2 if on top. When resolving a Move action the controller of this piece must roll a die. On the die roll of a 1 or 3 the sea monster is assumed to be moving under water, while on a roll of anything else it is assumed to be moving on top of the sea.

Sea monsters cannot attack while under water except when they are ramming a ship from underneath the water. If the controlling player is going to attempt a ram the creature must be moving under the water and be in the same space as the ship. The player will announce his intention and then roll a dice. If they roll a 6 the ship is sunk.

While on top the water and in the same spot as the ship the Leech Wyrm may attempt one of the following attack methods:

• It may snatch a crew member from the ship
• It may attempt to destroy the spars, rigging, or superstructure of the ship

These actions will be resolved using the following die rolls:

• Snatch a crew member from the ship- 1.
• Destroy the spars, rigging, or superstructure of the ship (one per turn) 3 or a 6. Any damage to the ship will hinder the ship from moving her basic movement action.

Whenever Leech Wyrm is attacking on the surface the defender gets to fire its cannon and any other ordnance it may have before the creature retires.

The defender will use their normal cannon die rolls, however they will have to have at least two successful shots to kill the Leech Wyrm.

New Blog Policy

Although there might some exceptions from time to time, I will endeavor not to use a name of a supplier for a label. I have too many labels already and am trying to trim these down a bit. To often these posts wind up being the only post mentioning this supplier.

Are they Pigs or Demons?

“Although it resembled a pig at first glance it had a most grotesquely human mouth and jaw, but with no chin to speak of. Its nose was prolonged into a snout and it had little eyes and queer ears which gave the creature an extra ordinary swine-like appearance. It had a very little forehead and its whole face was an unwholesome white colour. It eyes seem to glow at times with a horribly human intelligence. And its mouth jabbered inanely, and once emitted a half-swine like grunt.”

Chapter 5, The House on the Borderland, William Hope Hodgson.

After reading Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland I got to wondering whether there were any pig-demon miniatures available for purchase. So far I have come up with two pages of posts from a TMP discussion board that made a slight mention of the creatures mentioned in the House on the Borderland. Some have suggested using Orcs for these creatures. Anyone out there know of any miniatures similar to those mentioned in this novel?

Another Mention of Monsters in H.P. Lovecraft's, The Shadow Over Innsmouth

"There, (the creatures of Insmouth), predominant color was a grayish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their back were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four." If you had to quickly describe their appearance, I would say they seemed to be a cross between a frog and a fish-A fish's head on a frog's body."

Another distinctive and horrid characteristic of these creatures was their sickening and repulsive smell, they smelled of rotting fish. These odors surrounded them and permeated the surrounding spaces in which they frequent.

Projects for February

Welcome to February. We are in the dead of winter here and there is snow and more extreme weather on the way.

Tomorrow marks my blogs second year and starts my third iteration.I have been struggling with upper respiratory issues for the last two weeks and did not complete all that I had wanted to last month, thus the project under Old Projects.

The Bombshell Winged Monkey will be a stretch for me. I haven't done anything like this before.
I did complete several pieces out of the Basing Kit last month and would like to complete a few more of these. I will be displaying these as a completed set.

1. Warhammer Orc Arachnarok Spider - Trees
2. Bombshell Miniatures Belphegor Winged Monkey
3. Elements from Ristuls Market Halloween Basing Kit

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Old Projects

1. Bombshell Miniatures Pumpkin Pal

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Completed Projects

I do have images of my latest completed miniatures, that is the Sea Monster (Aberration) and also of Graveyard - Leech Wyrm and Mermaid, the latter two were projects back in December, which I will upload as soon as I can get the time to edit these images.

Reaper Miniatures #03608: Aquatic Familiars II
Sea Monster (Aberration)
Mermaid
Octopus (Aberration)

Warhammer Dreadfleet
Graveyard - Leech Wyrm