Skull and Shackles: Prologue
posted 5/10/2013 7:52:00 PM

I had quite a few inquiries about the campaign, and it filled up almost immediately. That being said, if the Sunday campaign works out well this weekend, I'll likely begin planning a second, separate game to take place sometime during the week, likely on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening from 6-10ish.

Additionally, I'm going to be writing an adventure log for the game that will follow our plucky band of to-be pirates here in this blog. Furthermore, QueenNic may be doing some art for said logs. Anyhow on to the first, brief prologue.
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On a long stretch of land and islands on the eastern edge of the Mwangi Expanse sitting within the coastal waters of the Fever Sea lie the Shackles; A nation ruled by the Pirate code and inhabited by the free captains who follow it.

And within the Shackles, looming over the waters of Jeopardy Bay you'll find the capital city of Port Peril, home to smugglers, freebooters, thieves and the crusts of society.

And within the city of Port Peril you'll find an inn. The Formidably Maid, home to the bawdiest shanties in Golarion and the most watered down rum in the port.

And within this inn you'll find five souls, eating spicy food and drinking the watery rum. Their fates forever changed from the moment they picked up their forks and tankards.

For in the food and watery rum lies a poison, a poison favored by the press-gangers of Port Peril. The crew of the Wormwood has run short on members and Captain Barnabas Harrigan isn't the kind of man to ask for willing volunteers.

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The story will follow our five press-ganged sailors.

Artaith (Played by QueenNic): Sylph Storm Druid. Born from a cross of Human and Air elemental energy, the Sylph share a close relationship with the winds and weather.

Nereida: A sea ranger of low azlanti descent, resembling humans in all forms save for the gills on her neck and webbing between her fingers and toes. She favors the net and trident.

M'aiq (Played by Fault2k): The plucky catfolk bard who's love of song is only outmatched by his hatred of water.

Zack: A Sylph wizard who has adopted the art of siege weaponry and the use of magic to amplify such engines.

Lastly a too-be-named Grippli swashbuckling ranger. Grippli are small and lanky things that resemble bipedal poison dart frogs. His seamanship is only outmatched by his eccentricities and bloodlust.

A CHU D&D Campaign
posted 5/8/2013 11:55:13 PM

I'm considering starting an online Pathfinder (A newer version of D&D for the layman) game, likely to take place on Sunday evenings.

No prior experience needed, we'll probably be using roll20.net and skype.

I've got fault2k thus far and looking for 3 or 4 more. I'll gladly take questions in the comments section.

So I started playing Dwarf Fortress
posted 3/30/2013 5:10:01 AM

You'll not question my honor in these halls!

The last words spoken by Tosid Shariden before gathering up his burrow and moving on to found his own expedition.

Moving far south into the elven rainforests he found a plot nestled between two elven empires, a dangerous location, but the geologist confirmed that the land had rich surface metal and flux deposits.

And so on those grounds became the location of Honesthome the True Truthful Honesty-Fortress of Fortresses. That should show those damn nobles who's the dishonest one in their halls.

We dug out our entryway, a long hall bisected by a small square room for the trade caravans to deploy, plus rooms for farming, brewing, and our eventual military barracks to hold the fort.

We would need to dig deeper to found our great halls as no true dwarf can live with his feet on dirt day in and day out.

Industry would be split between two levels. The top level would be dedicated to carpentry and smithing. Wood is required in both tasks, both as a material and as fuel.

Below that we would found our jewlers industry, as the stone had proven to be rich in precious stones in the layers above and likely the layers below. We would also locate our masonry and engineers here so they would be in close proximity to the stone left over from the gem mines.

Below that we founded the great halls. A massive longhall filled with tables and thrones. Around the great hall were large corridors off of which hundreds of rooms were cut as to allow each dwarf a place to sequester himself if needed.

Above the industrial districts and below the great halls we mined. The ground was indeed rich with surface minerals, however, nickle isn't very useful without another metal to alloy it with, it's veins did marble through our great halls and give them a pleasing appearance though.

So we dug deeper, towards the caverns.

And there we struck gold.

More gold than a single fortress could ever require. but you can't fight off an army of goblins with gold, we would still need iron.

Migrants arrived periodically, increasing our numbers dramatically. With numbers and great wealth comes the need for greater defenses.

We crafted a massive drawbridge out of a small portion of our gold horde, and paved the trader's hall with gold. We made golden chairs and statues for the meeting halls and golden doors for the nobles.

When the trading caravans came, we handed over piles of gold and gems for what little we needed and even more of what we didn't, and ensured the caravans made a great profit from visiting, as to encourage them to bring more goods next time.

We've had few problems within the Honesthome. A fisherman went mad and ended up killing two of our wardogs, a puppy, all of our cats, and injuring countless dwarves. A pump operator killed him with his bare fists, and so he was promoted to the captain of the city guard. We purchased more animals from the humans.

Monkeys are also an issue. They steal from our hordes, although usually mundane things, as they have no knowledge of value. They are a minor inconvenience at best.

We've only recently found iron veins and have begun to equip our military with armor and their favored weapons.

I uploaded an album of the fort in it's current state if anyone wishes to see what was described.
Link

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This is my second fortress, after the first succumbed to dehydration I watched a few videos, did some research and founded Honesthome. The 'FUN' hasn't kicked in (meaning the game hasn't completely wrecked me in every possible way yet)

But I'm really looking forward to my first siege.

A wall of text with intent to impact.
posted 3/14/2013 12:22:34 AM

I've gone back and written the first paragraph last as I do in many things I write. I have a great deal of fragmented thoughts that I need to express, so while there may be an ongoing theme across this wall of text it's direction and focus is not my priority.

I've had a great many things going on over the last week, much of it personal, none of it bad. But it's left me tired and in a mindset alien to me.

It's difficult for me to quantify the things I've lost. I've gone through the last half of my life begrudgingly giving up one thing after another in order to carve out a meaningful existence and obtain some semblance of normalcy.

I've never really had to go back and name all of these things for any reason. But I did just that earlier this week during an SSD hearing. One would think that this lack of normalcy I exist in would be obvious to myself when one is constantly surrounded by 'normalcy' (a term deserving of it's own long winded page of text), but it wasn't. I was largely unaware of all of these losses until I had to quantify them. Physical pain, mental duress due to the physical pain, and the lack of so many basic things that I would be taking for granted if I was allowed a 'normal' path were all quantified, explained, and hopefully sympathized with. I'm told by my attorney that it went well and I'm cautiously optimistic, but that isn't really what I need to talk about.

Last night I was an artist in ancient Rome, creating a mosaic across a massive ceiling. I was forced to work with speed and diligence supporting each tile with the last lest they fall and shatter on the floor. I did my work masterfully and experienced a sense of pride I haven't known in the waking world.

A popular theory about dreams within psychology is that the mind uses them to fulfill needs unmet during consciousness. I know very little about mosaics and even less of that intense feeling of pride in a masterful work, but last night the opposite was true, as those were the only two things that were worth knowing.

It's very difficult to describe the feeling of losing something so abstract as normalcy, like the ability to live outside of the fear that my head may explode with unknowable pain at any moment or that I might one day lose the use of my legs. Such an existence may seem like an unknowable cloud a dread hanging above one's life, but for me it isn't. I can't see it that way lest I spiral further downward than I desire to go. For me, such a life is my normal and to venture beyond that risks what normalcy currently have.

But I still haven't quantified the loss I feel towards normalcy.

Most of us, at one time or another, will fall in love with someone. This first love is a beautiful naive thing, that thing that feels like lightning in between your heart and your stomach. Such a feeling is knowable exactly one time. At that point one hasn't experienced the feeling of lost love. The thought that love can and will always last eternities and beyond prevails and any other concept hasn't found root within. Everything is new and forever. Few of us love our very first love forever, and many, if not most will find loves greater than the first, but even those great loves lack that feeling of lightning and eternal newness naively felt in days past. That feeling can be felt once, and ever after it's lost to everything but memory.

The way that one might miss that feeling of first love is how I might consider my feelings towards what could be considered normalcy. I can remember a time in my childhood where I was without pain, but those memories are distant and foggy now. That normal is no longer my normal. And while the old normal may be free of pain, it also contains ignorance of what's truly important and doesn't contain the things I treasure now in my current normal, treasures worth far more than that cloud of dread.

I'm now waiting for the results of my hearing. The best I can hope for is a new normal, a better one. But then again, I suppose that's the best thing anyone can hope for.

Warhammer, Music, and other things.
posted 1/16/2013 2:43:19 AM

So, I've just finished taking a few photographs of my ork trukk I mentioned in the last blog. It's the first model I've put together, let alone painted in ages.

Instead of spamming your blog wall with the others, I've uploaded them into an imgur album here: Link

Sadly, I've misplaced my x-acto knife, so I wasn't able to remove the mold lines from the model, but other than that I'm pretty happy with it, especially since I've gone so long without painting. I'd love some C&C on it.

I also promised some music.

Since I've returned to CH, I've become a convert to grooveshark and have a pretty decent sized library of music I enjoy. If you're the type that once enjoyed the old music blog posts, feel free to check it out and report back to me if you find anything you like so I can feel good about myself: Link

Additionally, I wanted to share the following music video, which has become one of my favourite videos as of late.