Darkwolf's page

After years of using Darkwolf or Darkwolf71 I got fed up with the over abundance of Darkwolves out there on the interwebs. So, I decided I wanted something original. Inspired by the artwork of the Akatas in Children of the Void, I combined my longstanding Wolf nickname with my love of all things Lovecraft.

Originality, she is mine. :^D

I don't mind kids.

I've even played with them actually at the table in long running campaigns.

I also know the coffee shop. Well, I've driven by often anyway.

If I go with the fighter I will be going the bastard sword & shield route. Add the Shield Bash feat chain and TWF for DMG and Bullrush goodness. :^D

Either a Half-orc Fighter or a Human Paladin. Or maybe... :-/

Damon Griffin wrote:

I'm willing to believe there's a good efficiency-based reason for doing this, but I'd love to know what it is. At first blush it seems counterintuitive to provide slower service to the individuals spending the most subscription dollars.

I was just thinking the exact same thing.

Looking at the comments for the Adventurer's Armory, there are people who got their PDFs as early as Friday 4/16 ... yet here I wait still.

It would be so very very nice if the PDFs for "pending" orders were available rather than being in limbo.

It is a beautiful irony that the more you spend, the worse the service is :)

Well, they can't give you the PDF before you've been charged and they can't really charge without shipping. That would add a whole new layer of complications and responsibilities they probably don't want.

They just need a bigger shipping staff. :-P

Wolfthulhu wrote:

I suppose you ship alphabetically, which makes perfect sense but I'm damn tired of being punished for having a last name that starts with 'W'.

(That last bit isn't directed at Paizo at all, just a venting of general issues I've had to deal with my whole life.:-P)

Edit:
Aaand, I did get my PDFs this morning. Hope you guys did as well.

My last name starts with a "B" and I haven't gotten anything yet, so I don't think it's done alphabetically.

Of course I did take advantage of the Blackmoor sale, and that might have had something to do with it.

No, not alphabetical. Now that Cpt_kirstov mentioned it, I recall that being the way they do it. I had just forgotten. Which of course renders my little whiny rant upthread meaningless and embarrassing. :-/

Wolfthulhu wrote:

Edit:
Aaand, I did get my PDFs this morning. Hope you guys did as well.

Since they do the bigger groups of shipping first (the APonly and superscribers are prolly the biggest group followed by companion without AP and modules... then superscriber and cards (I think the foes deck was with this month right?) and the 'subscriber with added items no one else has added'(me)

so you getting your gives me hope that mine are on the way

So the fact that I'm a little Paizo whore and subscribe to nearly every line they have means I get my stuff later?

That seems... off.

*sigh* Whatever. It is what it is. Going back to my PDF goodness now.

You guys really do a great job and all, but it's kind of frustrating to see my friends consistently get their PDFs and shipments a full week before I do. :-(

I suppose you ship alphabetically, which makes perfect sense but I'm damn tired of being punished for having a last name that starts with 'W'.
(That last bit isn't directed at Paizo at all, just a venting of general issues I've had to deal with my whole life.:-P)

Edit:
Aaand, I did get my PDFs this morning. Hope you guys did as well.

In the revised Campaign Setting, I'm strongly considering listing bonus languages for the 15 human ethnicities, so that most humans will start out knowing two languages. The one who misses out are the Taldans, since their language happens to be Common.

I think this is a great idea. Hope to see it in print.

Seems to be a common house rule. With all the Skill changes, not sure how they missed this one.

I think they ship subs on Thursdays, so hopefully we will both have our PDFs tomorrow.

It was a good episode. Of course opening with a replay of last weeks ending has nothing to do with my enjoyment. >.>

If you're looking for something bigger than a single module, my favorite has to be Rappan Athuk Reloaded.

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society did a great version of The Call of Cthulhu and are in post-production of The Whisperer in Darkness. Although if Period films aren't your thing you may not like them. The first is a silent film done with period accurate type special effects, the second is a 'talky' but is also done without modern tech and flash.

I can play pretty much anything when I'm not GM. I'm currently most interested in the APG classes.

As always, you rock. Thanks Cos.

Wolfthulhu wrote:

good stuff

I am willing to concede a little, I meant my response to be kinda jesting/teasing I should have put in ;-), they need to work out how to express tone in them thar interwebz.

I do love a literary cage match, at least I didn't call you a fanboy :-).

Although insult Tolkien and then it chainsaws at dawn.

Yeah, the problem with forums being that jests which require tone/inflection and/or body language to come off right rarely do. And somehow the statement 'You're wrong' falls squarely in that gray area. ;-)

It's all groovy though. No harm, no foul and all that.

Wolfthulhu wrote:

You're probably right, but that's not nearly as much fun as** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Greg

I agree. But my way is still more fun. :-P

Just received my recent order, very fast shipping by the way, thanks for that.

However... (Yeah, what would this section be without the howevers?)
The shipment only contained one of the two Gamemastery Combat Pads I ordered. I double checked the box and then triple checked it, I even dumped all the little annoying foam popcorn out and had to pick it up, and then I rechecked the paperwork. It's not hiding anywhere that I can see. Maybe the bugger jumped out of the box before it got sealed and is hiding in some dark corner of the shipping area?

Wolfthulhu wrote:

I don't want to get into a long and technical argument, but I do want to say that just because REH used Lovecraft elements in some of his Conan stories does not mean that Conan is 'part of' the Cthulhu Mythos.

Bang a gong its on!

Please justify your statement. If you are basing your argument on REH's Conan stories than, I can see where you might be drawing some of your conclusions from.

Its the wrong conclusion of course - Howard wove many element of mythos into his Conan stories. There are elder horrors and things that man should not know all through the Conan stories.

More importantly his horror and wierd tales stories are full of the Mythos.

Well, I didn't realize that my opinion was so insignificant next to yours. My most humble apologies oh wise and infallible one. :-/

To quote from Wikipedia

Most of the elements of Lovecraft's Mythos were not a cross-pollination of the various story-cycles of the Lovecraft Circle, but were instead deliberately created by each writer to become part of the Mythos, the most notable example[citation needed] being the various arcane grimoires of forbidden lore. So, for example, Robert E. Howard has his character Friedrich Von Junzt reading Lovecraft's Necronomicon in "The Children of the Night" (1931), and Lovecraft in turn mentions Howard's Unaussprechlichen Kulten in both "Out of the Aeons" (1935) and "The Shadow Out of Time (1936).[4] Howard frequently corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft, and the two would sometimes insert references or elements of each others' settings in their works. Later editors reworked many of the original Conan stories by Howard; thus, diluting this connection. Nevertheless, many of Howard's unedited Conan stories are arguably part of the Cthulhu Mythos.[5]

4. # ^ King quoted on front cover of 1982 paperback edition of The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre published by Del Rey Books with introduction by Robert Bloch. Other sources quote King as calling this judgement of Lovecraft "undeniable"[1] or "beyond doubt."[2]
5. # ^ Wohleber, Curt (December 1995). The Man Who Can Scare Stephen King....

Emphasis mine.

Interesting that even the author of this bit of quote suggests that he is able to see alternative views that you label as undeniably 'wrong'.

Actually, it could just be my interpretation, but he seems to be saying that he is willing to concede that they could be part of the Mythos, not that they definitely are.

I'm already playing in a Kingmaker game, but have never done Rise of the Runelords.

Also, if everyone has Society characters, I would be willing to run some PFS games. Maybe as a fill in until we decide what we want to do long term.

Without doubt.

Conan, believe it or not, was part of the Cthullu mythos, Lovecraft and RE Howard being pen-pals. That said, most of the Conan RPG isn't OGL but some might be, and if nothing else makes a good model of Cthullu in a fan setting.

Perhaps the solutOion is for us mere fans to start a thread and make our own, sticking to HPL for our primary monster source and building new monsters ourselves.

As stated Earlier, sanity is OGL thanks to Unearthed Arcana (3.5) stating that all of it was OGL.

I don't want to get into a long and technical argument, but I do want to say that just because REH used Lovecraft elements in some of his Conan stories does not mean that Conan is 'part of' the Cthulhu Mythos.

Aberzombie wrote:

Well, that was....interesting.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

You're probably right, but that's not nearly as much fun as

Best. Ending. Ever.

Oh yeah,

Do we want to move discussion off of this board to another one, start a yahoo group, or find another way to communicate? I am not sure if this is the right forum to discuss an on going game, but we can keep it alive to find new players as needed.

I wouldn't worry about that. The Gamer in Houston thread is pushing 30 pages now and it covers everything from game stuff to personal life stuff and most anything else you can think of.

[Kain]We are gods... dark gods and it is our duty to thin the herd.[/Kain]

Illithar wrote:

One of the big reasons I probably wont bother with the iPad, and possibly the HP Slate as well, is due to a missing feature that everyone else seem to be glad for: the Stylus.

Assuming that the Leaked Slate Info is correct at launch, it does state "pen/digitizer support".

I'll wait a few weeks or a month after the Slate. In the mean time, I spend my money on camping gear (which will be more useful after 12/21/12 ; ).

What, didn't keep your supplies from 12/31/99?

This speaks to me at some dark times.

Fade to Black

That song got me through some rough days.

You could just indicate that your character isn't rich. Reroll your wealth or swap rolls with someone who wanted to run a wealthy dilletante.

I thought about that, but having the option of throwing money at problems is too good to give up.

I talked with the Keeper over the weekend and he likes the background I sent him Friday. Posted above.

I really like some of the other ideas posted and will likely use them later in the campaign. :-D

My pleasure. No, really.

And when you are, I want you to think of this post.

Unlikely, when my character does die or go insane, I'll be too busy rolling up another character and creating a background for him. You know, it's this pesky little thing called role-playing, perhaps you've heard of it?

I doubt I'll slow down long enough to consider useless posts.

I think most replays will take place in the Tier 1-2 range. Not a whole lot of farm worthy loot in that range.

Also Josh, what's the word on releasing 2.2?

I did think abut going the mob-ties route, but I'm playing a bootlegger in another GURPS based 1920's horror game, so I didn't want to be overly redundant.

While he was away fighting in The War, his family died under strange circumstances. Father, Mother, elder sibling. As well as sibling's spouse and child.

He does still have family alive, a twin (or younger) sister who was... elsewhere at the time. But where would a young lady be during the war? A boarding school somewhere in the States maybe. And other, distant family back in the country of origin which I haven't decided on yet. Probably Great Britain, just to be simple.

Returning home, he began looking into the deaths. Driven by near obsession and fueled by functionally unlimited cash, he was able to quickly obtain an Investigators License and spent months in occult research coming to nothing but dead ends. Several years later he is less obsessed, but still determined to find the truth about the deaths. He spends most of his time working for actual clients.

He generally spends his time away from the house he inherited, sleeping and taking his meals there, but during the day he prefers to avoid the quiet and the memories there.

I think I will also work the Holmes fan bit in as well, it makes sense that a guy of the period going from total non-law guy to a PI would research a bit and be inspired by Doyle's genius.

Hey, Alex. Thanks for wasting space. No, really. Max points for absolutely nothing.

I thought about something like Davi's idea. Rich lone survivor guy. Looking for something to do. Or maybe the way his parents died pointed to the occult and his occupation is his way to search for answers.

The Keeper is pretty creative, so I'm sure he'll take whatever ideas I throw at him and come up with some nice hooks.

I'm also considering making him an Explorer. Coming from a rich (and still living) family, so he was able to do the spoiled rich kid thing and go on safari or archeology digs funded by the old man.

So I finally found a local group to play Call of Cthulhu with and we met last night to roll up characters.

Every thing was going well as I rolled the general stats for the Private Investigator I was planning. Not as strong as I wanted and way more educated than I expected, but it was all fine. I can work with that. After getting my skills mostly situated it came time for everyone to roll for wealth.

I rolled a 10. Max roll. In a modern game that would be $500,000 a year. In the classic 1920s setting my yearly income is $20,000. Not exactly a working man's salary. I'm having a bit of trouble finding a motivation for this guy to be a PI. If anybody can come up with some suggestions I'd sure appreciate it.

I could also drop the PI bit and go with another profession, but I'm not sure if I want to do that.

Twowlves wrote:

Brian E. Harris wrote:

One doesn't need to go out of their way to be rude, and then make excuses for it.

Compare and contrast Lone Wolf Development to Paizo, for a moment. Paizo's staff don't attack critics or displeased customers. Lone Wolf Development's staff does.

Not that I don't believe you, but your definition of "attack" and "rude" might be different from mine. Could you point me at some of this behavior so I can read it for myself?

I believe that this post is one like he is refering to, which includes this line when pointing out one of the customer's mistakes:

lonewolf-rob wrote:

"Do you have an initial clue about why the email might not have been seen or replied to?"

Yep, sounds like a pretty jackass comment if all you read is that one sentence.

After digging through lots of info on our server, I found that you sent an email to "no-reply@lonewolfdevel.com" on the 16th (four days ago, not two weeks). In the email, you requested that your license be unlocked so you can activate it on a new computer only a month after activating it already. Do you have an initial clue about why the email might not have been seen or replied to?

So the guy sent an email to a no-reply address and then went to a public forum to kvetch about not getting a reply. Yeah, I can understand Rob being a little snippy about it. And that's all it was, a little snippy. It wasn't a deal where Rob was just biting the guys head off for no reason. Did he handle it perfectly? No, but guess what, we're all human and make mistakes.

Every one of you in PRPG get a lovely favored class bonus at level 1. Take it, spend it on a skill rank, and spend that skill rank in Linguistics. Now you start with Common and whatever local language you want.

Problem solved IMHO. :-)

I love it when they get all logicy and stuff. ;-)

Kthulhu wrote:

Han shoots first

No, no... Han shoots, period.

Han shoots, he scores, the crowd goes wild!

If my party decides my Bard should have 'the role' I am fully prepared to take Leadership and hand the crown to my cohort. It has a lot of possibilities, I think.

Wow, that's BS.

They have keep my DVDs with both Theatrical and Extended versions on them until I can upgrade that to Blu-Ray. I am not going to be suckered into buying multiple copies again. Screw you New Line.

It's been several days now, so I don't remember the particulars for that battle, but it usually comes down to timing the use of buff-debuff/defense/offense Paradigms.

Wolfthulhu wrote:

Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is burying your head in the sand. That doesn't mean that everyone who tokes a bit will move on to harder drugs, but you'll find very few hard addicts who didn't start wit 'just a joint' or two.

Its likely they had alcohol as well so are we going to argue that we need to ban beer because its a gateway drug?

Cigarettes and coffee are stimulants as is crystal meth and cocaine. Hence it strikes me that if we are worried about gateway drugs we should be outlawing latte's because they lead to crystal meth abuse.

I already responded to that.

Twowlves wrote:

A sales pitch. And not the only one the folks at Paizo are going to hear on this subject either.

+1

-Lisa

Now that's just mean.

But it makes me all smiley. :-)

Wolfthulhu wrote:

An unfair comparison. I don't know if there's a study out there comparing the percentage of drinkers who went on to hard drugs vs the percentage of pot smokers who did, but I have no doubt that the results would be pretty heavy on the MJ side of the scale.

There is a study i found several years ago writing a paper for college (i'm not going to go sifting for it, you'll have to take my word on it). Basically it stated that while people were more likely to have used marijuana before using harder drugs, they were most likely to have used tobacco and alcohol before touching marijuana. So while marijuana use might lead to the use of harder drugs, it's not fair to call it the gateway drug since something like 85% of pot users got their start on alcohol and tobacco (the true gateway drugs).

Yeah, I figured it would be out there, but I'm not invested enough in the argument to go looking. However, the secondary statement that they were likely to have used alcohol and tobacco is like saying they were likely to have driven cars. It's far to large a percentage of the population to be definitive.

Of course, I'm sure that people who have never smoked or drank at all are FAR more likely to not try any drugs, but where's the fun in that statement of the obvious?

Sebastian wrote:

I have no doubt that if you did a study comparing the percentage of pot smokers to the percentage of pot smokers who tried alcohol first, you'd fine a very large overlap. Conclusion: alcohol is the gateway drug to marijuana! So, really, if you want to close the gate, you should start with alcohol.

Bludgeoned once again by the harsh club of correlation vs. causation.

Ouch!

No, the blind bashing of snideness doesn't bother me, I knew what I was in for when I made my post. Besides, it's Sebastion. Snarkiness is to be expected. ;-)

Wolfthulhu wrote:

I'll take the unpopular stand and say no.

Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is burying your head in the sand. That doesn't mean that everyone who tokes a bit will move on to harder drugs, but you'll find very few hard addicts who didn't start wit 'just a joint' or two.

I also see it as a stepping stone to legalizing other, more dangerous substances.

No offense but you'll also not find hard addicts who didn't start with a beer or two.

An unfair comparison. I don't know if there's a study out there comparing the percentage of drinkers who went on to hard drugs vs the percentage of pot smokers who did, but I have no doubt that the results would be pretty heavy on the MJ side of the scale.

Wolfthulhu wrote:

I'll take the unpopular stand and say no.

Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is burying your head in the sand. That doesn't mean that everyone who tokes a bit will move on to harder drugs, but you'll find very few hard addicts who didn't start wit 'just a joint' or two.

I also see it as a stepping stone to legalizing other, more dangerous substances.

I rarely say this to anyone, because I believe they're entitled to their opinion, but you're wrong.

Marijuana is no more a gateway drug then alcohol or tobacco. You'll find very few hard addicts who didn't start with "just a bottle or two." The argument is through and through b@*@#%#&.

As for legalizing other more dangerous substances, so what? What the *bleep* do you care what someone else does to their body? Seriously? Why is it any of your g~& d@~n business? It's NOT. You, and society have every right to hold someone accountable for crimes they commit against other members of society, but you have absolutely no right to tell them what they can or can't do to themselves. Don't like that tweakers steal and hurt other people? Then hold them accountable for stealing and hurting, not for doing drugs.

It always amuses me to see non-hostily posted opinions turn the 'tolerant' people into jerkish hypocrites. Thanks for the entertainment. I mean that.

I'll take the unpopular stand and say no.

Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is burying your head in the sand. That doesn't mean that everyone who tokes a bit will move on to harder drugs, but you'll find very few hard addicts who didn't start wit 'just a joint' or two.

I also see it as a stepping stone to legalizing other, more dangerous substances.

Let the speculations commence!