The Eldritch Mr. Shiny's page

the wilds of New Jersey

evil, intelligent didgeridoo.

My avatar name is a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong story. The name was originally conceived as a joke/midnight rambling by one of my friends, who at the time was obsessed with both Firefly and H.P. Lovecraft. I, being obsessed with both of those subjects at the time as well, actually thought the name was cool, and immediately created a superhero on City of Heroes named Mr. Shiny. Myself and my friend are in the process of developing a Mr. Shiny comic book, and I now use the alias Mr. Shiny, or various permutations of it, all over the web. I just picked the picture beacuse it looked cool.
-Mr. Shiny

Oh Jeez, I listen to a lot of gorram music... The following CD's are on heavy rotation in my deck lately:

-Amon Amarth - With Oden on our Side
-A Perect Circle - Thirteenth Step
-Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade
-Dropkick Murphys - Blackout
-Seether - Disclaimer II
-Seether - Disclaimer
-Dropkick Murphys - Sing Loud, Sing Proud!
-AFI - Sing the Sorrow
-Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come
-Refused - THe Rather Be Dead EP
-Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun
-The Prizefighter Inferno - My Brother's Blood Machine
-Coheed and Cmabria - In Keeping Secrets of Silet Earth 3

-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

- consequently conjuring up spirits of the netherworld

clever use of

portrayed Lovecraftian horrors and nightmarish

NEVER SEE ERAGON IF YOU ARE AT ALL FAMILIAR WITH THE GENRE! The movie was a tremendous disappointment. Even if one were to ignore the obvious parallels with Star Wars, the movie is irredeemably sentimental, the characters are infinitely predictable, and the story meanders without regard to any over-arching theme. The writers and directors of Eragon make Ed Greenwood and L. Ron Hubbard look like J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft. I've seldom seen as big a piece of go se in my life.
-Mr. Shiny

Our age of worms game has had the amazing BOLT THROWER "warmaster" LP cranked almost non-stop for the last few sessions. I don't like the band too much, but SIX INCHES of BLOOD has a lot of songs related to orcs scavenging the lands and can be entertaining from time to time.

EDIT: we have also been enjoying DEERHOOF, CHRISTIAN DEATH, and POLVO for some of our mellow sessions.

NICE! I have been using my above mix, plus the following:

- Amon Amarth - With Oden on our Side
- Tool - Lateralus
- Refused - Rather Be Dead
- A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms
- Rammstein - Rosenrot
- Lamb of God - Sacrament

Aha! On the origin of the PCs! Anyway, there are 2 different parties listed, beacuse the first one was decimated by the Wind Warriors in tWC, which our gaming group just finished.

1. - Mal Greenwood: CG (later CN) male human fighter 2 (dead)
- Gilmer Galadhen: NG male elf cleric of Pelor 2 (dead)
- Marsden the Violent: N male human Warmage 2 (dead)
- Carien: NG female elf rogue 2 (lone survivor)

2. - Edmond Violet: LN male human cleric of Wee Jas 1/Incarnate 1
- Morden: N male human sorcerer 2
- Elias: N male human figher 1/barbarian 1
- Carien: NG female elf rogue 2

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtaghn!
-THe Eldritch Mr. Shiny

Another good example of a Chaotic Neutral character is Jayne Cobb from Firefly. He's always in it for the money, and tends to value material pleasures above all else.
-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

I agree that games where pcs play good heroic characters are the best, though having a LE assassin in the mix who is devoted to the party can make it fun and interesting. LE is the only alignment in my opinion that can work with a good party or nuetral party than contains lawful charactes, because a LE well always keep his word of honor; getting it out of him may be very difficult and interepting it may be amusing; but a clever player can make this work and do things for the party without their knowledge that they would find repugnant and can be a good source of information about stuff. The LE assassin in my party has over the years convinced the LG paladin that he is wicked but seeks his guidance and fellowship to change; after seveal years; even became the paladins squire; still does evil stuff but has never been caught and yes the good guy is really good; not stupid and has had to, ahem; correct, his squire several times.

I once had a LE cleric as a character, and he worked pretty well as a character. The only problem, ironically, was that there was also a CG cleric, a LN cleric, and a CN cleric, and our DM solved the problem by KILLING ALL FOUR CHARACTERS.

Also, my original AoW character, a CG human fighter who 'snapped' during the Whispering Cairn adventure, necessitating an alignment change to CN. THe interesting thing was that it was the DM's choice to change the character's alignment, not mine. We didn't have any chance to discover the effect of a slightly unhinged character on the game play, however, because my fighter was killed by one of the Wind Warriors.
-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

I just read this campaign journal, and James Jacobs and I must have had the same idea. Totally independent of each other, we ended up playing clerics of Wee Jas with almost identical domains, feats, and character backgrounds. Practically the only difference is that my cleric is male. Talk about creepy...
- The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

I'm a huge fan of Kyle Hunter's stuff, and loved the first two issues of Swerve. Were there any more issues published?

-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

I found, quite ironically, that Kyuss--the band, not the demigod--works quite nicely as gaming music.

I'm a huge Kyuss fan, and I was just as surprised as you that it worked as background music. I also created a soundtrack for the Aow campaign I'm in:

1. Franz Liszt - Danse Macabre
2. Kyuss - Space Cadet
3. Hans Zimmer - The Kraken
4. Midnight Syndicate - Relic Uncovered
5. Marilyn Manson - Resident Evil (main theme)
6. Kyuss - Odyssey
7. Creed - Bullets
8. Modeste Mussgorsky - A Night on Bald Mountain
9. Kyuss - Mondo Generator
10. Marilyn Manson - Coma Black
11. A Perfect Circle - Weak and Powerless
12. Midnight Syndicate - Heroes' Valor
13. Refused - Tannhauser
14. Tool - Stinkfist
15. Metallica - The Thing that Should Not Be
16. Avenged Sevenfold - Radiant Eclipse
17. Franz Liszt - Dante: Malebolgia
18. Kyuss - Apothecaries' Weight
19. Tool - Doom (main theme)
20. A Perfect Circle - Pet
21. Marilyn Manson - The Nobodies
22. Tool - Third Eye
23. Kyuss - Green Machine
24. A Perfect Circle - Judith
25. Amon Amarth - The Beheading of a King
26. Kyuss - Asteroid

Hell's Yeah!
- The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

I forgot to add a couple of tracks:

27. Refused - Circle Pit
28. Kyuss - One Inch Man
29. A Perfect Circle - Blue
30. Refused - Rather Be Dead
31. Kyuss - Writhe

I found, quite ironically, that Kyuss--the band, not the demigod--works quite nicely as gaming music.

I'm a huge Kyuss fan, and I was just as surprised as you that it worked as background music. I also created a soundtrack for the Aow campaign I'm in:

1. Franz Liszt - Danse Macabre
2. Kyuss - Space Cadet
3. Hans Zimmer - The Kraken
4. Midnight Syndicate - Relic Uncovered
5. Marilyn Manson - Resident Evil (main theme)
6. Kyuss - Odyssey
7. Creed - Bullets
8. Modeste Mussgorsky - A Night on Bald Mountain
9. Kyuss - Mondo Generator
10. Marilyn Manson - Coma Black
11. A Perfect Circle - Weak and Powerless
12. Midnight Syndicate - Heroes' Valor
13. Refused - Tannhauser
14. Tool - Stinkfist
15. Metallica - The Thing that Should Not Be
16. Avenged Sevenfold - Radiant Eclipse
17. Franz Liszt - Dante: Malebolgia
18. Kyuss - Apothecaries' Weight
19. Tool - Doom (main theme)
20. A Perfect Circle - Pet
21. Marilyn Manson - The Nobodies
22. Tool - Third Eye
23. Kyuss - Green Machine
24. A Perfect Circle - Judith
25. Amon Amarth - The Beheading of a King
26. Kyuss - Asteroid

Hell's Yeah!
- The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

Daigle wrote:

Yeah, it's a Bauriar (?sp too). It was in the Dragon issue that had some Planescape stuff in it. The detailed a few of the factions and what had happened after they were dismantled. That fellow is of the Free League.

I dont think that guy is Free League, he's the leader of an older, long disbanded faction called ... the Brutes? or the Bashers? I dont know, something like that.... sorry, I dont have my magazines with me

The bullies.

...

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure where mine is from. I think it was an issue of polyhedron...

I believe he's one of the Cagewrights from the Shackled City adventure path. Ha! My eidetic memory seves me well. Now if I could remember his name...

Yeah, I have no idea what mine is either. Any insight is appreciated.

I picked it because it looks like he's wearing little reading glasses and the idea of a powerful demonic entity with tiny reading spectacles amuses me greatly. It also gives the impression of a physically powerful figure with a keen intellect as well... the avatar of a true DM, imo.

He was the leader of one of the Planescape factions, but now he's dead.

In my opinion, a Lovecraftian-themed show would be awesome. Also, I noticed, Age of Worms would make a pretty good TV show if broken up a bit more. And of course, BRING BACK FIREFLY, GORRAMMIT!
-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

The Black Bard seems to have the same take on music as I do. I often create my characers while listening to a particular song or album over and over again. One of my favorite characters (an albino human cleric of Wee Jas/ incarnate of Wee Jas that I created as a backup for my friend's AoW campaign) was created while listneing to A Perfect Circle's Thirteenth Step and Mer de Noms albums. My original AoW character (a rather impulsive human fighter) was created while listening to the song 'Circle Pit' by Refused, on a loop, about 50 times in a row.
-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

How many people REALLY had a player in their group make a Drizz't clone PC? I never had one in any of mine so I can't say I am really frustrated by people making Drizz't clones unless the 30 threads or so that I have read about the negatives of this have influenced me.

I did once have a Drizzt clone PC in one of my games, but only superficially. the new guy insisted on playing as a Drow ranger with two scimitars, but RP'd his character as a sort of Munchkin version of Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. His character got killed by a mummy 30 minutes into the game, convincing him that Drizzt wasn't actually THAT powerful. I haven't had any problems since.
-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

... and THAT is why I ALWAYS create my OWN iconic NPCs for the PCs to run into... except for the one time the PCs in my home-brew campaign setting had a brief run-in with Downer during an underdark adventure. My tip: just use the stat blocks for iconic book characters. Just make up new names and descriptions for them.

-and that is The Eldritch Mr. Shiny's take on said subject.

Yeah, Elminster sucks. And while Drizzt is cool in print, I would HATE to have him in ANY campaign I was running. He has way too many emotions, which, in my opinion, can't be healthy for you. Some characters that desperately need more press are Salvatore's Jarlaxle Baenre and Artemis Entreri, and also Kyle Hunter's Downer Tarantula. We're past the age of goody-two-shoes heroes.

- The Eldritch Mr. Shiny abides.

I forgot to post a few other good music sources that I use in my games:
- Creed (played at low volume; mostly because it sounds epic)
- A few tracks by Marilyn Manson: Coma Black, Cryptorchid, This is the New S~*& (nice and aggressive, good for epic conquests), The Fight Song (good combat music), and The Last Day on Earth
- Tool (dark, scary, and mostly instrumental)
- A Perfect Circle (trippy and frequently instrumental)
- The Prizefighter Inferno (has sort of an airy fantasy feel)
I am currently playing in AoW, and our DM found it hilarious that there was a.) a band called Kyuss, and b.) that it worked for background music in AoW.
-The Eldritch Mr. Shiny

I've always used music during games. Some of my favourites include:
- Thergothon (really good for Call of Cthulhu)
- Kyuss (ironic)--has lyrics, but good anyway
- Coheed & Cambria/Shabutie (again-with lyrics, but really good)
- The Princess Mononoke OST
- Franz Liszt's 'Danse Macabre'
- The Morrowind and Oblivion soundtracks
- The Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2 soundtracks
- and of course, the Midnight Syndicate D&D soundtrack
Try it. I implore you.

- The Eldritch Mr. Shiny