Welcome to Skulliveria

Mostly miniatures and RPGs with other weirdness sprinkleed in. Looking to get a game in? See me and let's get rolling. https://startplaying.games/gm/skuliver

[vintage-tigre]

[skuliver]

When you GM a table how do you keep the band together?

🎶 THE RPG BAND COMPOSITION TOOL

Your RPG Group Is a Band — Here’s How to Make It Work

Most RPG advice focuses on rules or GM technique. But the real reason campaigns thrive or collapse is simpler:

Your RPG group is a band. Every player is a musician. They being a way to play as an expression of self. The game you choose is the venue.

If the band and the venue don’t match, the campaign falls apart.

Here’s my full taxonomy.

🎤 THE MUSICIAN ARCHETYPES

David Bowie — Universalist

Björk — Experimentalist

Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine) — Ideologue

James Hetfield — (Metallica) Crunch Technician

Jack White — OSR Improviser

Taylor Swift — Narrative Pop Star

Kate Bush — Mythic Dreamer

Brian Eno — Ambient Worldbuilder

Dee Dee Ramone — Gamist Loop Player

Prince — Multi‑Instrumentalist

🎭 THE VENUE TYPES (with example games)

Crunch Venue

Pathfinder 2e • Shadowrun 5e • GURPS • D&D 5e: Structured, tactical, build‑driven. Best for: Hetfield

OSR Venue

Old‑School Essentials • Dungeon Crawl Classics • Shadowdark: Dangerous, improvisational, rulings‑not‑rules. Best for: Jack White

Narrative Venue (PBTA / FitD)

Apocalypse World • Blades in the Dark • Band of Blades: Fiction‑first, dramatic, thematic. Best for: Taylor, Björk, Zack

Mythic / Atmospheric Venue

Mörk Borg • Heart • Wanderhome: Symbolic, poetic, surreal. Best for: Kate Bush, Eno

Gamist Venue

Knave • The Black Hack • Maze Rats: Fast loops, simple rules. Best for: Dee Dee

Cozy Venue

Wanderhome • Ryuutama • Tea Dragon Society RPG: Gentle, low‑pressure. Best for: Bowie, Taylor

Exploration Venue

Cairn • Into the Odd • Electric Bastionland: Discovery‑driven, procedural. Best for: Jack White, Eno

Simulationist Venue

GURPS • HarnMaster • RuneQuest: Realism, internal consistency. Best for: Hetfield, Prince

⚠️ THE COLLAPSE THRESHOLD

1 mismatch → friction

2 mismatches → unstable

3+ mismatches → collapse

GM can only fix ONE mismatch (remember the GM is a player too)

🎼 THE TAKEAWAY

Book the right venue, make sure the band can play in harmony and your campaign will sing.

[skuliver]

Thanks for that, Brain.

Just so you brain has something to chew on, I want you to picture: WILFORD GIMLI.

Let your mind start doing Gimli dialogue from LOTR, mutated in passage through a Wilford Brimley filter. Because honestly, there is no reason for Dwarves to all default to a Scottish accent. If you crave further punishment, reapply a vague Scottish layer on top of the Brimley filter and prepare to suffer.

Go on, try it, make it weird. Put Gimli in an Oatmeal commercial or the movie Cocoon. DO NOT explain why he is there. He's still got a helmet on and added an armored cardigan. It JUST IS.

You're welcome. Don't clap, just throw money

[skuliver]

Just so you brain has something to chew on, I want you to picture: WILFORD GIMLI. Let your mind start doing Gimli dialogue from LOTR, mutated in passage through a Wilford Brimley filter. Because honestly, there is no reason for Dwarves to all default to a Scottish accent. If you crave further punishment, reapply a vague Scottish layer on top of the Brimley filter and prepare to suffer. Go on, try it, make it weird. Put Gimli in an Oatmeal commercial or the movie Cocoon. DO NOT explain why he is there. He's still got a helmet on and added an armored cardigan. It JUST IS. You're welcome. Don't clap, just throw money.

[skuliver]

I made the cup I need. Because sometimes the coffee needs to go in before we get any lore drops or narrative hooks. If you need it too, see the link. https://hal-hawthorne-shop.fourthwall.com/products/opening-crawl-black-mug

[scifiseries]

[skuliver]

New paints on OLD models. Done up with Army Painter Speed Paints, these are Rogue Trader era "Imperial Army" models circa 1988...from the days when Commissars could form units (wait, do they shoot each other?) and humans could take jet bikes. The command group have metal bodies and some weapons and arms are plastic. The stand of troopers is all plastic. I have them sitting in a movement tray from Mantic. You might be thinking these should eb on Goblin Green but i'm basing this project off an old White Dwarf article and the mean green had not hit the scene as standard in '88. I modified the flag by pulling in an image from a magazine scan and tweaking it in photoshop.

[skuliver]

My swing at some grown up Fridge Art. This is a printout of a page from the 1978 Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Book. Its actually really cool and includes a basic playable game tied to the images in the coloring book. You can find a scan and links to PDFs here https://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2011/10/greg-irons-advanced-dungeons-and.html

[skuliver]

Hope your week is going well.

[skuliver]

Some Warhammer 40k Death Guard and a Demon Prince I painted a while back. The demon prince is an old Mantic model from the game Deadzone. It's from the "Plague" faction. I wanted more of a hulking brute in bone armor look versus "oops all goop". I swapped the head out for a metal Demon Prince model from the 1990's. The wings come from the same kit.

[dndmultiverse]

All Part of the Plan

[skuliver]

These are some 54mm (1/32 scale) I painted up using Army Painter Speed Paints over slap chop undercoating. They are on a zoned board the Red Sand Blue Sky, from Two Hour Wargames. It a gladiatorial combat game good for one shots and campaign play as either an individual or a Lanista (owner / operator of a gladiator school). Works head to head or as a solo game The figures are stock save for the Retiarius ( dude with a net and trident) . The net on the model was sculpted as part of another gladiator model on the ground. Not really useful for play. I made a new net out of medical gauze which i saturated with wood glue in order to sculpted it into the flow and drape I needed. Once dry, it was really solid and painted up well.

[skuliver]

My little starter family for "Piper" the Necromancer. This is a warband for "Deth Wizards" from Snarling Badger Studios. Why "Deth"? Well, because intentionally odd names are METAL and it's also the name of the kingdom your Necromancer is returning to after having been exiled in their youth. Many years have passed and your Necromancer has picked up a very special set of skills and is about to go revenge quest on the land that betrayed them It's a narrative skirmish game designed for solo narrative play, co-op narrative play or head to head. Players take control warbands of undead which can become more powerful over time, gaining and losing members through battle. Each warband is lead by a Necromancer of one style or another. Our buddy piper here is of the "Stitcher" type. Stitchers treat their undead as pets and valued companions. I figure Piper took being told to "go make friends" very literally. Models are mostly Reaper bones save for the two greenish Zombies which are from Mantic. Mantic Undead are some of the best. "Piper" seemed like a Bard type and i detest D&D 5e "Horny Bard" antics so, she switched paths to necromancy. All the same, i spent way more time than I intended getting the color on her booty to pop. (Piper Noooooooo) The ruin is a much older project made of bunch of old bits of LOTR terrain with some Mordheim bits thrown in. Its built inside part of a CD case and the floor is done up with cardboard from a cereal box, sand from a lake and some foam clump foliage from model railroad trees.

[dndprofessor]

[nasa]

Night and (Earth) Day

This image, released in celebration of Earth Day, shows the terminator – the line between night and day – on Earth. The Artemis II astronauts captured this view on April 2, 2026, during their journey to the Moon.

NASA science improves life on Earth every day. We provide insights on our home planet that can only be gathered from space, which can then be used for disaster response, farming, and more. In addition, our observations of Earth and the technologies we develop provide the foundation needed to explore and sustain human life on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Download this year's Earth Day poster.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[vintage-tigre]

Let The Forest Find You - David Whyte, 1994

Seeing Through the Forest of Consciousness

“What should I do if I’m lost in the forest?

- Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called “here,” and you must treat it as a powerful stranger. Must ask permission to know it and be known. Listen. The forest breathes. It whispers “I have made this place for you, if you leave it you may come back again, saying ‘here.’” No two trees are the same to the raven. No two branches are the same to the wren. If what a tree or a branch does is lost on you ---then you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you”

[skuliver]

15 millimeter scale forces for the 3D print alternate history WWI wargame "World War Tesla" from Fat Dragon games. There are also Infantry models with jet packs and ray guns. One side's troops look a bit like "The Rocketeer" and the other ones have big Mandalorian energy. Fun build, have yet to play the game but I'm a big fan of a game where you can print everything you need to play at home. The camo units here were painted based on some WWI German camo and the other side based on the no frills green used by the British.