Rangers of Shadow Deep: Tor Varden

The Lower Level

Dralthar had made his way past the bridge guards. Now it was time to retake the tower Tor Varden.

The first chamber contained a grisly sight. Whatever it had once been, it was now a shaman’s workshop. The furniture was all covered with gore from unknowable experiments. In the center, the ork shaman was putting the final touches on some unnatural flesh golem.

Dralthar charged in, quickly cutting down the shaman. But Roger, the rescued soldier from the bridge, fell to the shaman’s guard, out of the fight.

The next room contained an armory, along with more ork warriors. In the fierce combat, Shivertusk and Laura were both wounded and out of the fight. Now it would just be Albert the Conjurer to assist Dralthar. Once the enemy was defeated, Albert searched the room, finding both the captain’s log and some fury leaves.

The final chamber in the lower level was a makeshift torture chamber. Several civilians were chained up along one wall, while an unarmed soldier was being whipped by an ork sergeant in the center. The solider used Dralthar’s sudden entrance to try to escape, but the ork sergeant cut him down.

Dralthar fired one shot, hitting the sergeant straight in the eye. Dralthar and Albert managed to kill the rest of the opposition.

Dralthar gathered up his wounded companions, patching them up for the upper level. Laura stayed to guard the civilians while Dralthar led his team upstairs.

The Upper Level

Up on the tower top, a Shadow Knight along with an ork soldier stood near the wood pile, with another helpless solider chained atop. Surrounding the tower, on wooden scaffolding, three ork archers stood by.

Dralthar took a hard crossbow hit, while Roger charged in towards the wood pile and was cut down. Shivertusk, undaunted, spread a philtre of fairy dust over his blade and engaged the Shadow Knight. The magic of the fairy helped Shivertusk to destroy the knight. When Shivertusk looked up, Dralthar, and Albert had both been laid low by crossbows. Now it would be up to him to finish retaking the tower.

Flames lit up in the distance — the beacon towers of Tor Dargos and Tor Hammel. But they had a sickly green glow. Shivertusk managed to shake off the ill effects.

Shivertusk hid around the corners of tower, baiting the archers into coming closer. When the time was right, he leapt out, and took each and every one down.

Now alone, Shivertusk gathered his companions, including his leader, Dralthar the Ranger. The tower was taken, but at terrible cost. Both Albert and Roger would never fully heal from their wounds. But they would still be needed to keep the Shadow Deep at bay.

Markers: Web Cocoons

My Rangers of Shadow Deep vision is to made some small thing for each game, and over time build up a library of terrain, markers, and models. Of course, that theory led to over a year between games, since I tend to get hobby sidetracked. But here we are.

Web Cocoon markers

This was inspired by a half-remembered YouTube video I’m not finding again. The cocoons are made with Crayola Model Magic, which air-dries into a lightweight form. On top of that is stretched web material like you’d put on your house for Halloween. The bases are made with white glue, sand, and toilet paper.

The bases are definitely the weak part I did not like any aspect of working with it. If I did this project again, I’d probably just use wooden circles or something, with sand or other basing materials I use for models.

But I can’t be too precious with these. The goal is to get it done so I can play the game. And done they are.

Markers: Bad Squidoo Ancient Battlefield Remains

I got these along with the stone heads, also from Bad Squidoo. This set more properly stands alone, though could also either be objective markers or just decoration.

Bad Squidoo Ancient Battlefield Remains (high view, group 1)

I think it’d especially fit with Relicblade. Why not have to claim that relic from it’s long-fallen bearer?

Bad Squidoo Ancient Battlefield Remains (high view, group 1)

Time has not been kind to these fallen warriors.

Bad Squidoo Ancient Battlefield Remains

Markers: Bad Squidoo Stone Heads

I picked these up at Adepticon, from a variety of nice terrain accessories from Bad Squidoo. I think they’re intended to decorate bases or larger terrain pieces, but I decided to make them standalone for now. They can act as objective markers, or just some battlefield spice.

Bad Squidoo Stone Heads

I’ve always been interested in the layers of history. Random ruins from past civilizations are one way of showing that.