The Crew of the Puddlejumper in Miniature

Well I've finished up the miniatures for the crew members. Here's a group shot. From left to right; Kate, Josie, Ben, and Toni. My wife painted Toni, her character, but the rest were painted by me. I'll include a better shot of each mini when I do the character spotlight.

The Crew of the Puddlejumper

Although the Midnight Rider campaign has a cast of seven only four are actually part of the ships crew. This image of the crew was created by Russel Petree who's playing the part of Ben (second from the left). From left to right: Toni the ships mechanic, Ben the ships captain and pilot, Josie the ships doctor, and Kate the first officer.

The Making of the Midnight Riders Serenity Campaign: Part 1 The Puddlejumper

The UD12 Chickenhawk Ultralight Transport "Puddle Jumper"

I always use miniatures when playing RPGs. Mostly because they make combat much easier to keep track of. That and they look cool and I enjoy that aspect of the hobby as well. Midnight Riders is a Greenhorn campaign though it would seem that most GMs give their crews a nice shiny ship what can fly from one end of the Verse to the other easy peasy. Well....Homey don't play that. I like my crews to earn their keep and if all they can afford starting out is an over glorified long range shuttle that's all they get. Enter the UD12 'Chickenhawk' class ultralight transport. This one's affectionately named by it's owner Ben "Puddlejumper" because he used it to make short hops from one planet to the next from Ariel all the way out to Beylix. While these ships can usually make the journey from one planet to it's closest neighbor they are really not designed for that purpose. They are however excellent craft for transporting cargo and or passengers between a planet and it's moons or to a larger ship in orbit and as such they are popular on planets with a larger number of terraformed moons or space stations in orbit. Because of their small size they often serve as heavy shuttles or captains launches on larger ships.

This excellent paper model can be downloaded from this site. The UD12 was originally designed as a model for the Infinity miniature combat game but we felt it really had a look that fit the Verse well. The site and the instructions are in Spanish but the instructions included some great visual clues as to how to put the ship together and oddly enough all the parts on the download were in English so that helped as well.

I'm quite bad at assembling paper models for some reason. I always make a mess of them. I can do plastic models. I can paint and convert pewter miniatures fairly well. I'm pretty good at building terrain and I can even scratch build ok but with paper models I'm all thumbs. My wife is very good at them though so I get to enjoy these kinds of highly affordable and attractive despite being completely incompetent at building them myself.

Point of fact: My wife Michelle is also playing Toni the crew's mechanic so in fact this ship was assembled by it's mechanic and I'm quite lucky to have such a lovely and talented wife who enjoys cutting folding and gluing little bits of printed out cardstock the likes of which make me crazy.

Cast and Crew Feature: Nathan Miller Game Master

Nathan Miller Game Master

On the 'Verse' as an RPG setting.

What is it about the Firefly/Serenity setting that makes it so appealing as a roleplaying setting? One word: Freedom. Not only is the quest for freedom a major theme of the show but 'Verse' itself seems be be in a constant struggle between freedom and security. Dozens of planets and hundreds of moons provides a great deal of freedom when deciding where to take the story and every one of those worlds has it own culture and feel. The Verse is a vast frontier full of mystery and danger. Find a ship. Find a crew. Take jobs as they come. Keep flying. What more could you want in a roleplaying setting? Then there are the other features of the setting that make it unique. Cowboys and spaceships, horses and hovercrafts, whisky and fancy women, big shiny cities and backwater cow towns. No elves, no orcs, no aliens, just plain old folk some good some bad some only ok. A very unique setting with endless possibility.

About my own self.

Somehow I just can't get past the fact that the first real article on this blog will be about me. Seems a bit uppity but then again I am putting this thing together and I can always get ahold of myself for an interview right? Anyway my name is Nathan Miller. I was born west of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon in a hospital in Sedalia Missouri on September 20th of 1974. I grew up Warsaw Missouri a small town of 2,000 in the northern Ozarks. I currently live in Warrensburg Missouri. I've been playing roleplaying games and miniature games since I was 11 years old and I started out as the groups GM. I've always had a strong interest in history, culture, and art. I paint, sculpt, do photography, and enjoy making things in general. I'm married to a beautiful woman who also plays RPGs and miniature games and we have an 11 year old daughter who's started playing games with us as well although she won't be playing in the Serenity setting for a few years. Anyway enough about me.

About the Midnight Rider Campaign

Midnight Rider is set 6 months after the first Unification Day. The fires of the Unification War or The War of Alliance Aggression, depending oh what side you were on, still smolder. Some folks ain't done fightin like the "Dust Devils" and the so called Alliance Militia forming up out on the Border and the Rim. The 7 person crew of the "Puddle Jumper" a UD12 'Chickenhawk' ultra-light transport have found themselves way out on the edge of the Verse looking for work, and hopefully a bigger ship, among the moons and planets of the Rim. The Alliance presence is heavy but unfamiliar with how things work out on the Rim. They plod along trying in vain to establish order on lawless planets. If that weren't enough to make things bad for the folks out on the frontier there have been reports of savage raiders from the edge of space. These "Reavers", as they have come to be called, attack without warning or provocation descending on settlements and ships murdering everyone they can find. There are some who say they are cannibals and that they do other more gruesome things than merely kill the folk they attack. The Alliance of course denies they exist at all but there are too many reports to dismiss them as campfire stories and tall tales. Out on the Rim the dangers are plenty but there's work to be had for them that look hard enough and ain't too picky as to the manner of work. They got a crew. They got a ship. They gotta keep flyin.

Serenity: Midnight Rider teaser

Well, Ive got to run to keep from hiding,

And I'm bound to keep on riding.

And Ive got one more silver dollar,

But I'm not gonna let them catch me, no,

Not gonna let em catch the midnight rider.

And I don't own the clothes I'm wearing,

And the road goes on forever,

And Ive got one more silver dollar,

But I'm not gonna let them catch me, no

Not gonna let em catch the midnight rider.

And Ive gone by the point of caring,

Some old bed Ill soon be sharing,

And Ive got one more silver dollar,

But I'm not gonna let em catch me, no

Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider.

Allman Brothers Band

Welcome to the official blog for the Serenity: Midnight Rider roleplaying campaign. Midnight Rider uses the Serenity Roleplaying Game rules from Margret Weise Productions. This site will include: Episode Logs, Cast and Crew spotlights, Behind the Scenes Features, The Making Of Features, and other information about the campaign. Please fee free to leave us feedback about our campaign and watch this site for updates!