Jeremy Mcgillan's page

But I do think I can give you the storyline of the Trial of the crusader. It all starts with the advent of the third war in the human kingdom of Lordearon. King terenis Menethil had ruled for many years with wisdom and light. His son Arthas was trained as a paladin and the future looked bright. That was until the scourge invaded, armies of undead plagued the land Arthas was at the forfront of driving them back filled with holy wrath trying to defend his kingdom. Foe after foe fell before him including a top lieutenant of the scourge a human necromancer called Kel'Thuzad. Eventually Arthas encountered what he thought to be the head of the scourge a Dreadlord named Mal'Ganis a demon from the twisting nether. Arthas blinded by rage did what he could to defeat Mal'Ganis. Mal'Ganis had organized for the city of Stratholme's grain supply to be infected with the scourge plague to provoke Arthas, telling him that he would claim all who live in stratholme for the scourge and bolster there numbers. Arthas in his blind rage said he would rather purge the city than let the citizens fall the scourge and so he did. Arthas ran into Stratholme with his forces killing man, woman and child in his way to make sure they would never be part of the scourge. Mal'Ganis retreated telling Arthas that if he wished to find him he must travel to the icy wastes of Northrend. And Arthas followed. A rumor circulated that that the only way they could beat the scourge of northrend and slay Mal'Ganis was to claim the cursed sword Frostmourne. But when Arthas claimed it, he soon found out it was a trick, a cursed item made by Nerzhul the Lich King. Through the sword Nerzhul whispered to Arthas slowly dominating him and inspiring him to return to Lordearon as the head of the scourge army and slaughter the once great human Kingdom of Lordearon. Later on Arthas returned to Icecrown found the trapped Lich King Nerzhul released him from his prison and the two joined as one as the Lich King. The Argent Dawn was formed soon after this advent made up mostly of the human survivors of Lordearon their primary goal was to drive back the scourge from the former kingdom of Lordearon now known as the plaguelands. And with the invasion of northrend by the horde and the alliance, they formed the Argent crusade to push into Icecrown and to put an end to the Lich King and the traitor prince once and for all. And with the invasion of Icecrown Citadel drawing ever closer the Trial of the Crusader was formed, to test and strengthen the greatest of heroes and prepare them for the march on Icecrowwn citadel. Hence they put forth "The Call of the Crusade".

Sorry all I could find of the current top end raid is a trailer.

Trial of the crusader trailer

This is one of the things I like best about WoW is raiding and seeing the end game content. All of which has amazing story behind it. So I will put a story preface before I show an excellent video of Ulduar one of the top end raids currently on Wow and you can see what I experience on a nightly basis.

Ulduar is the city of the titans. Though the titans no longer inhabit Azeroth they seem to be the origins of life on the planet. What we do know about the titans is that they seeded many planets with life and fought against a terrible primordial evil known as the elder gods. The elder gods corrupted the planets the titans would seed with life and sometimes even wipe out life completely. Though in the struggle the titans did eventually gain the upper hand and all the elder gods were either destroyed or imprisoned. In this movie you will see one of these elder gods Yogg-Saron the elder god of death who broke his shackles and proceeded to infiltrate and corrupt Ulduar the city of the Titans. You will also see Algalon the observer herald of the titans whose job among other things is to look for elder god corruption and if it is found to reoriginate the planet (Burn it down and start from scratch basically). So here are the videos.

Preface
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Frankly I find gamers tend to be a fairly welcoming type of folk. I myself am a gay man married to my husband, most of my close friends are heterosexual males, one friend who is now named Morgan is a transexual female also attracted to females, and Morgan was in a game with all of my hetero male friends. There was no issue. But what it boils down to is if the person is just going to be an idiot about non issues well then there going to be an idiot in any environment.

Hmm... no real bad roommate experiences, had some interesting ones. My favorite was when I was rooming with a 50 year old Drag queen called Emerald. "Hey Jeremy can you zip up the back of my dress I can never reach and I'm afraid the press on nails will fall off if I try". Like I said it was an interesting yet entertaining experience.

Unfortunately the above theory is not a new one. Conspiracy theorists have tried to peg the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a government designed population control for years, some even dared to say it was a government run way to dispose of undesirable populations. The point is it's not a new viewpoint.

The only thing I fear about december 21 2012, is the idea that things like mass suicides, and people doing really stupid things just before hand.

Gods above, I never beleived that anyway! I saw a pattern in the rumor I heard regarding doomsday. One said 2000, the next said 2006, and then there is the one saying 2012 will be the end of the world. So, if the pattern holds, the next 'end of the world' should be 2018.

Yeah just go ahead and ship it now and send the one product that comes out next month shipped seperately.

He's an emo whiny crybaby thats why.

As to your question about "Does Dawkins think the christian God is worse than the other gods of thtime" I really don't think he does he sees them all as equally barbaric and fictional. He believes them nothing more than a dark reflection of the psyche of man. Read "the God Delusion" It makes it very apparent that man made god after his own image and not the other way around (A violent hateful territorial ape). He really sees no distinction just because the other gods of the time had human sacrifice, well Yahweh (adonai, jehovah, whatever else you want to call him) demanded if a woman wasn't a virgin when married than she was to be forcibly taken outside of the camp tied down and pummelled with big frickin rocks til she was dead, same to rebellious teenagers, those who worked on the sabbath, homosexuals, etc.. etc., etc., etc. Honestly that doesn't really sound any better than human sacrifice really.

I'm sorry but Mykall your response is unacceptable. If your god says that genocide is acceptable in some instances he is no better than Adolf Hitler or Slavodan melosovitch, or any other genocidal murderer in human history. Just because you disagree with him doesn't mean your free game to die. Thats just f%*#ing evil. Why should god not be held accountable for atrocities that would have a human executed for crimes against humanity? Frankly I find it quite disturbing that such things would be accepted.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

So within those bounds one could find justification for many things.

Such as bombing clinics and killing doctors? Sadly, you're totally correct.
But alas, evil people always seem to find justification for any atrocities they wish to commit, "holy" book or no.

I agree with what you say Kirth, Far too many people take atrocities commited by loonies who want to say "The Bible told me so" at their word. I know, and used to work for, a guy that stood by the opinion that his wife was his servant, cause the Bible says it. I guess the douche forgot the part where he puts NO OTHER before her, people will always use whatever reasoning they can to justify their actions, we have all been guilty of it at one time or another. Christian or not. The thing you have to keep in mind is the Bible is a book, written by man, a long time ago. The world has changed, people have changed. A lot of people are shocked to find out that I support gay marriage because it is the christian thing to do. Anyway, just wanted to throw my 2cp back into the debate.

EDIT: When I say what you have to keep in mind, I refer to everyone, myself included. ;)

I am not saying that most christian people are well intentioned I think most are. I think they're misguided. Thats all. I was just making the point no matter what their "god" does now well he did and commanded awful things back then. They also have the belief that god is the same yesterday today and forever. So within those bounds one could find justification for many things.

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

Again it still doesn't justify it's teachings which are found in the bible

If I may, a couple of points probably need clarification. First off, your gripe seems to be with Abrahamic faiths in general, and with Christianity and Islam in particular. When you say "religion is bad!" and then cite the Bible as evidence why, it makes me, a Buddhist, assume that you're not really thinking this through at all.

Second off, and this is something that has come up quite a bit, no one advocates that you open the Bible to a random passage and do whatever it says there. Most of what's in it is supposedly historical -- "this is how it was/is in these places" -- and separating that from the "thou shalts" would seem like a reasonable first step. If I read a National Geographic article about Darfur, that doesn't mean that the National Geographic Society is advocating genocide -- maybe they're impartially reporting, or maybe they're strongly against it. Another important point is that, if I understand them correctly (I'm not one of them), Christians assert that the Old Testament prohibitions and admonishments apply to Jews only, not to Christians. So they can eat shellfish, for example, despite Leviticus saying not to.

So, if you've got specific modern-day religious teachings, from a specific religion, that you'd like an accounting for, spell them out and I'm sure someone here can give a reasonable answer. Until then, please refrain from lumping me in with "all those racist homophobes," because I subscribe to a religion that (a) predates Christianity by a wide margin and (b) doesn't adhere to the Bible in any event.

Secondly as to the charge of sexism your argument only validates how out of date the belief system is. Even if it was slightly less sexist than the surrounding societies thats like the difference between 1st and 3rd degree murder it's still wrong(Maybe a bad analogy but the only varying degree I could think of at the time). And actually according to the code of Hammurabi Babylon had a greater respect for women than the Isrealites.

Again it still doesn't justify it's teachings which are found in the bible that of racism. Read the old testament the jews were the people of god everyone else was a gentile, unclean, evil. Many of times god told the Jews to show no mercy to the gentile. When Joshua invaded the city of Jericho he was commanded to kill them to a man leave none alive, genocide was fine in this instance. When they finally reached the promised land of Israel again God commanded to kill all of those found therein to leave none alive to corrupt the Jewish people. (Howerer they did leave one tribe alive who promised to serve them and this royally pissed god off that they were not slain as well). In the New testament Jesus came to originally save the Jews. Read the book of Acts only after the Jews rejected christ as a heretic did they turn to the gentiles.
Sexism, in the old testament a woman was nothing more than property of a sort. She lived to serve the man. In fact only 3 instances in those records did a woman gain a leadership role. One was a prophet from the book of judges (and the only female prophet ever). The other 2 were the apocryphal books. The book of Judith (who was commanded by god to go into a besieging armies camp seduce the general and cut off his head while he slept), and the other was the apocryphal book of Mary Magdelene. Both are rejected as non canon. Neither was approved by the council of Nicea and to this day are shunned by the church. Paul in his writings seemed very sexist he wrote of how a woman should be in submission to the man and that "women should be silent in the temple". To this day how many Woman priests do you see?
Homophobia- I don't think I need to get into this but it is very prevelent in modern religion Leviticus 20:13 will tell you all about it.
Ignorance- The greatest enemy to scientific progress has always seemed to be the church. From the inquisitions of the middle ages, the torturing of Galileo Galilei, to the modern ignorance promotion of trying to disprove evolution. Fact is if it disagrees with supposed "truth" then it must be opposed by them. Despite the fact we have physical facts to say it couldn't have happened that way.

I'm sorry but this is what most religion promotes and teach and it isn't societally healthy. The fact it could teach such awful things is horrible and honestly it isn't hard to see how it could spiral into violence in the above teachings.
I'm sorry for being very blatant but the facts just don't support a benevolent organization that does no wrong and doesn't cause violence.

Ok I've read it over a few times but I really don't have another way to say it.

I'm sorry but I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance. And then he sends me to hell cause I'm the bad one. Sorry but it just doesn't make sense.
I know it sounds like I'm being deliberately mean but I'm not trying to be. More wars have been caused by religion than anything else. I mean look at the war in afghanistan it was definitely started by religion. Religious exetremists motivated by a very dangerous belief to commit mass murder suicide. It just seems unjustifiable and it's happened time and again throughout history. I mean how can you seriously support that.

Wait hold the phone..... you guys have monkeys in the warehouse...... I wanna visit for sure now.

Ok I just changed the payment method for you. So just use that number for the above orders that haven't shipped yet.

I would apply I am qualified as a duel citizen but I am currently inhabiting a rock in the north atlantic ocean, in the most easterly city in North America, so the commute is a bit much but anyone from paizo is welcome to come here ;).

The orders I need to change the credit card number on are orders #1247924 and #1109757.

Ok I have an order outstanding and my credit card number is changing at the end of the week is there anyway to change the payment method on an order that hasn't shipped yet?.

Ok I now realize I have to stop linking this during internet discussions when someone says something completely insane.

I also understand starting at 5th level can make the PC's unbalanced but I think that could be overcome by a loot generating table instead of allowing them to choose and customize their loot ahead of time (not that there's much at 5th level). The only other thing to overcome is customized feats they can play around with. Which I think could be worked with.

Thats it James I have your knew office address I'm sending you some stuff I have for high level play maybe a villain or 2 that might inspire you. You can have them for free.

One day I really would like to do some sort of big adventure sequel something that takes adventurers from 15th to 20th level, but right now that's not something we're really working on.

As for why Pathfinder APs only go up to around 15th level... lots of reasons. I'll list five bigger ones below.

1) Because in 6 months, that's basically what we have room to cover while still providing lots of support material in Pathfinder for the AP.

2) Because sales for APs traditionally decreases at the high level end of things.

3) Because higher level adventures are a lot harder to write, and thus harder to develop and edit.

4) Because the overwhelming majority of gamers prefer mid level adventures.

5) Because when we go above 15th level, monster options become increasingly sparse, especially since for many encounters you want things that are above the party level by 2 or 3 CRs. This essentially means dragons and evil outsiders and creatures with complex class levels or monsters from beyond the core Bestiary from other Bestiaries or products which means more full-reprinted stat blocks which means longer adventures.

That said, I'm very strongly considering an attempt to go higher than 15th for an upcoming AP, if I can figure out how to pull it off in 6 volumes...

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

*sigh* All I have to say is the man is dead wether you agree with his politics or not show some respect.

I was wondering because I had a very rare flash of brilliance an awesome story and villain to go with it. It almost seems pathfinder worthy. I was wondering because I would send it to you with no strings attached (except maybe a name mention if you use it).

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

To be fair I love WoW it is only second to my D&D and thats because I still can't get my group back together. WoW only gets exciting for me in high end raiding when you have 24 other people raiding end game content working together. But like I said it's still second to D&D.

I had enough interest in it to buy the pen and paper d20 version of WoW. do pull ideas out of it now and then. Mostly I don't have time for MMORGs because I would get addicted if I did play them. My wife already says I soend to mucgh time on the computer.

To be fair I love WoW it is only second to my D&D and thats because I still can't get my group back together. WoW only gets exciting for me in high end raiding when you have 24 other people raiding end game content working together. But like I said it's still second to D&D.

*sigh* then I have a long wait ahead of me til I get my hands on my copy.

SO do we..... please let me know..... please.

Ok lets cut the crap
Republicans lets start with this. If you honestly think that the democrats are trying to make the US a communist country at best you just are naive at worst you are clinically paranoid.
Democrats lets start with the stupid paranoid ideas that the republicans caused 911 and invaded Iraq for oil. Thats absolutely stupid and again your either Naive or clinically paranoid.
AND IF YOU THINK EITHER PARTY IS TRYING TO DESTROY AMERICA YOUR AN IDIOT AND NEED TO PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS.
Frankly you both need to grow up and stop listening to those instigators on television and yes I mean you Bill Oreilly and Rush Limbaugh. And I also mean you Michael Moore and John Stocil. Seriously turn off your television some of them are just feeding you ridiculousness and if you took a minute to think you'd see that.

Frankly I begin to see smear campaigns and party propoganda all over the place. And usually they end up with immature ugly name calling and arrogant a@*#!#%s leading them. I see news media ripping on other countries (mainly France and Canada lately). I even see the right wing saying things "If you want to live in a country who doesn't take any action at all move to France". And I see the left saying stuff like "If the republicans want to live in a religiously run country move to Iran."
Frankly I think both republicans and Democrats along with their loudmouth sycophant news media outlets (I'm looking at you Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore) need a big dose of GROW THE f*#& UP.

Thats it! Time to get out the iron chastity belts

Frankly I have no problem with religious belief, that is a very personal thing, that is part of a persons identity. peaceful constructive religion is good. However as creationism, and intelligent design are religion you have no right to push that into a science classroom to try and convert those minority of non religious, thats what your church outreaches are for.

******Lurk*****
******Lurk*****

Frankly I have no problem with religious belief, that is a very personal thing, that is part of a persons identity. peaceful constructive religion is good. However as creationism, and intelligent design are religion you have no right to push that into a science classroom to try and convert those minority of non religious, thats what your church outreaches are for.

Jeremy -- You're preaching to the converted. Anyone in favor of teaching creationism has already rejected your arguments, so your post does nothing but convince them you're some kind of psychotic.

I'd VERY strongly recommend the documentary "A Flock of Dodos" to anyone wondering why Creationists are doing such a great job of gaining converts despite the robustness and track record of the modified theory of evolution by natural selection.

******WARNING SARCASTIC HUMOR AHEAD*********

If conservatives get to call universal healthcare "socialized medicine," I get to call private, for-profit healthcare "soulless, vampire bastards making money off human pain."

"He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave." - William Drummond

Ok I have a major problem with religion trying to use science to justify things. I'm sorry the 2 things are completely incompatible. You will never find evidence for your gods existence or his direct intervention. Why? Because of your own books confession he says he wants you to have faith in him he wants you to believe in him even without proof.
And frankly all this creationism and intelligent design to be taught in classrooms is ridiculousness, if you want your children to be religious take them to church and teach them yourselves. And the reason Intelligent Design has been thrown out time and again in courtroom situations is precisely because it is religion, it violates the seperation of church and state. Intelligent design is based on nothing more than observations lacking hard evidence. It is nothing more than speculation and heresay. Why? Because without direct evidence of a designer all you'll ever have with it is the perception that it looks designed (even though i can poimt to a number of different unintelligent designs/ inefficient biological systems). Point is religion should stay out of the science classroom, and if you want your kids to learn intelligent design DO IT YOURSELF!!!!
Another reason it isn't science, if we were to present hard undisputable evidence to those proponents of inteligent design that their "HYPOTHESIS" is false, they wouldn't stop believing it. Why? FAITH, they would no more stop believing god created the universe or that he designed it then they would leave their religion.

Ok I will say this about the relation between science and religion.

Science is the study of the natural world and the workings thereof.
God, fairies, ghosts, goblins, the flying spaghetti monster, the great juju up the mountain, lord krishna, aphrodite, apollo, and Pinky the troll are examples of the supernatural. These are things that science can't study precisely because they are SUPERnatural. They are not part of the natural world and can't be physically studied or measured. Trying to do so is utterly ridiculous.

Callous Jack wrote:

Jeremy Mcgillan wrote:

Ok over the past few months I have met a surprising amount of people who really don't know what science is by definition. They seem completely ignorant of it's workings. So I have taken it upon myself to clarify.

Isn't it a religion?
;-)

The key difference between science and religion is that science would be willing to change perspective in the face of physical measurable evidence. Problem with religion is even if we did give undisputable proof of the non existence of god, I can almost guarantee the view would likely not change. Science isn't (or shouldn't) be based on emotion, feeling or faith. It should be solely based on what the evidence and facts present, it should remain as neutral as possible on the subject.