Visions of Confluence

Last year I dove headlong into making terrain for Malifaux. As I’ve mentioned before, terrain is my favorite part of the hobby, so brining my vision of Malifaux to life has been great fun so far. While I’ve posted pictures here and there as I’ve completed pieces and  set up tables, I’ve not had the chance to talk about the design of what I’m working on or to share any tutorials. Over the next several blog posts, I hope to change that.

In fact, this is the first of several posts that will be much more than pictures of the terrain I’m working on. They will also be a chronicle of the world I’ve envisioned in which the terrain is placed. In this way, I hope to craft this blog into a record of all aspects of my hobby work with Malifaux, from terrain and painting all the way to playing and running campaigns.

But to start, I want to talk a bit about inspiration. When I started the terrain project, I spent hours looking through old photos on-line and documentaries to find the direction in which I wanted to head. My goal was to make the boards feel like real places. The pictures included here are those I kept as reference. I had visions of port cities, railway stations, mining camps and downtown blocks and quickly I decided I needed to focus on a single concept. I chose to create the mining town Confluence. This week’s post will conclude with an introduction to the town and one of its more colorful residents.

"Augustine Gale was dead. According to the Marshal, who admitted having no skill in medicine, the body had lain for hours, a twisted smile breaking over its cold face. The corpse was covered in blood and its pockets were filled with what must have been a dozen Soulstones, humming and gently glowing in the darkening evening. Normally unconcerned with something as routine as a suspicious death, the Marshal had been called in when the milky opalescent stones were discovered. As he collected them, he noted not a single wound on the old man’s body. Whether the blood was Augustine’s, the Marshal was not sure. Nor was he sure what was meant by the words on the floor beside the dead man’s head. He pocketed the Soulstones and scribbled in his notebook the strange words scrawled in blood ‘THE FLESH’.

"West of the Black Swamp, the town of Confluence hides in the thick forest along Silent Creek. It is believed there were once three rivers flanking the small town, but today there remain little more than dry creek beds meandering through the woods. The town was originally established after the opening of the first Breach, carved from the woods not in search of Soulstone, but a large gold vein deposited along the riverbeds. When the Breach re-opened, Confluence, like most settlements, was rediscovered, emptied of its inhabitants and silently waiting. Among those to resettle was Augustine Gale, an enterprising mine operator from Earthside who had tried to make a name for himself in Soulstones, but had been squeezed out by the iron fist of the Guild’s regulation. In Confluence, Augustine believed he had found a way to make money, a lot of money, without the Guild’s constant oversight. Now he was dead, the ambition little more than a drying glint in his gleeful, dead eyes.

"News of Augustine’s death has spread quickly over the frontier. Even more quickly have spread the stories of the Soulstones he possessed. Never before have Soulstones been mined out of Silent Creek, but Augustine’s death may be a sign that a vein has been discovered. Whispers in the mining camps have grown as brave men and women gather supplies and sneak into the west, eager to set up their own claim where Augustine met his fate. Surely it won’t be long before the powers of Malifaux turn their eyes towards the quiet streets of Confluence as well..."

In the coming weeks, we’ll take a closer look at the story of Confluence, as well as the Shifting Loyalties campaign I ran in my local group. And of course, there will be more painting and more terrain. As always, any thoughts are welcome. Thanks for the visit!

More to Come.

-Nick