yellowdingo's page

Crimson Jester wrote:

Does he have Mel with him? A good companion can save the day you know?

I'm confused... first you were talking about Mel, and then you were talking about good companions. I don't see the connection.

Build high for happiness!

If Paradise Towers had a million rooms would it be a Megadungeon?

Erik Mona will understand. It's a Doctor Who thing....

He's hoping he isnt a yellow Kang.

I suspect that the best place to get the straight dope on whether gold is likely to be confiscated would be in the management discussion and analysis of Goldcorp Inc, AngloGold Ashanti, Barrick, and their ilk. Barrick spent about 5.7 billion two years ago completely unhedging, I don't think they are expecting owning gold to become illegal.

Why not? Gold is a superior superconductor and when alloyed - a better grade of inductor/transformer winding.

Silver on the other hand is a better conductor and once the price of electricity is high enough, Silver and gold will become industrial application commodities.

Besides - Gold is better off in the hands of the state - exclusivly for use in science and industry - and currency should only be used to conduct trade between states.
Everyone else should be required to work for food and shelter to validate their citizenship and that compulsory seat in parliament.

72. Farmer abducted by Bees

"Help!" Edwin the Turnip farmer, alerted by the cry for help, looked up at the sight of a fellow farmer being carried off by Giant Bees.
"Good gracious!" Edwin downed his tools and fled back toward the village. He would need help with this one.

DM Briefing: A farmer is abducted by Giant bees that he might render services to the Queen.

Source: Link

Geographical Location: Maure Castle marks a border-crossing between Greyhawk and an eastern land (possible the duchy of Urnst) with Dwarves in the hills to the north (or south) and gnomes in the hills to the south (or north).

US Gold Confiscation Act

Thats not Plankton...thats ewww!

Charisma is all about convincing folks to worship your god, and convincing your god to give you spells. It is the perview of the Charlatan to pry your gold from your coinpurse with a whisper. It is the Tool of leaders.

Wisdom on the other hand is the perview of Wise men (Monks). It is Judgement and the understanding vital to know how to use knowledge to its most advantageous.

Aberzombie! Put your clothes back on!

Try 'ChaosKampf'. I even suggest you look it up on Wiki so you know why.

"Chaos (Greek χάος khaos) refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth.

The same term has also been extended to parallel concepts in the religions of the Ancient Near East. The motif of chaoskampf (German for "struggle against chaos") is ubiquitous in these myths, depicting a battle of a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the shape of a serpent or dragon."-Wikipedia

A god or demigod/hero fighting to death with a dragon is pretty much every fantasy roleplay game cover. I hadnt considered D&D a creation myth but that is exactly what it is.

71. Expedition reaches Pole

"Gregor! We are here! Quickly! The Flag!" Derwan the Navigator set down his Astrolabe and looked about at the Ice. The Glow of the Sun was out on the far Horizon. Gregor struggled out of the Rowboat and attempted to drive in a Flag.
"Derwan...look. What is that?" Derwan turned to look where Gregor was pointing out on the Ice. Was that a White Bear?

DM Briefing: Explorers reach the North Pole in a Rowboat through the breaking up Ice Pack.

source: Link

341. Decision makers reach an agreement on the placement of the capital that results in the creation of a unified state of Dakota, rather than the split into North and South.

Personally I would have gone with a Mile wide perfectly flat rail line between both locations and made the parliament mobile.

Where do we think we will put everyone?

In Cities...Given a Modular house in a Cargo Container costs about 10,000 dollars per family member - for what has been squandered as financial debt by the USA - we can build a billion population city in the USA which will consist of a Single row of commercial, governmental, and industrial towerblocks about a 600 mile diameter ring; a single medical, commerical, governmental, educational tower at the centre of every square mile within that area; and 200 million families on single acre farms allowing them to live a high density rural lifestyle where they can grow their own food.

Given we can do that in China, India, Europe, Africa, South America, and Australia, and North America...there are Cities for the first Seven billion people.

Having just created your own Role Play Game Engine you decide to name it and find the popular ones are already taken...What do you name your game?

1. Kriegspiel RPG
2. Swordmasters RPG

feel free to add a name...

70. Wanted! Dead or alive

Three shadowy figures watched as the Rebels celebrated their taking of the capital city with looting and burning before slipping into a shop in search of its hidden cellar.
"Any sign of my Son?" The Cloaked figures revealed themselves to a Haggard figure leaning over a table covered in documents.
"Not yet my King, and we must move you soon. I fear this bolthold is no longer safe from your enemies."
"What do you mean?" King Gurdar looked at his loyal guardsman.
"They are offering a million gold piece bounty for you...dead or alive."

DM Briefing: An uprising in a kingdom has ended in the fall of the capital, but the King is nowhere to be found. The Rebels have issued a million gold piece reward to the individual who brings the King in Dead or Alive.

Source: Link

69.The Old Mill

Franco could only watch as the black cloud of bees enveloped the old fisherman stinging him to death. The Twisted bloated form was revealed only after the bees had flown off to die now that they had expended their only weapon. The Old stone building was obviously their home but what had the old man done to deserve such a fate?

DM Briefing: A Villager is stung to death by over six hundred bees. They have a hive occupying a stone Mill long abandoned on the edge of town.

source: link

34. The PCs stumble across their favourite BBEG hanging in a Cage outside a town. He is to die of hunger just for being a Wizard. Any Wizard PC will be arrested and likewise caged.

I'm not.

32. The PCs are detained without trial or charge by a local magistrate until their families pay a large fine.

ISS Astronauts start looking at each other funny as food resupply rocket explodes

68. Temple Treasure Vaults Opened

Royal Asessor Hunan directed the workers to pull and for a moment the great stone seal refused before giving away. The sound of the stone seal scraping across the surface of the stone floor was deafening. A Burning torch in hand he pushed through a gap and looked inside.
Behind the seal of the first vault lay an impossible hoard. Hunan choked on the awe of it withdrawing from the gap. There were six other vaults and the one at the end was said to contain a demon.

DM Briefing: Deep beneath an Urban Temple a Government Official opens Temple Treasure Vault 'A' to discover a treasure worth fifteen billion gold pieces in Diamonds, Gold coins of various lands, and a Golden Statue with ruby eyes. There are six vaults and the Sixth has warnings that a demon is imprisoned within.

link

67. Tsunami devours Kingdom

Suki cowered under the support beam as roof fell all about her. The Terrible shaking seemed to go on forever descimating her old timber home. Outside the screams of villagers was mixed with a terrible crashing sound.
What had her grandmother said before she died? Run all the way to the big hill above the graveyard if ever there is a shaking that destroys the village?

DM Briefing: A Terrible Quake rocks the whole kingdom. Soon after a terrible wall of water thirty feet high washes over the land reaching in a hundred miles. All coastal communities are destroyed leaving only those in the mountains. Many thousands perish.

Source: Link

15. A Villager takes an enemy nation coin from his young child who found it in the dirt near the village well.

We got one in Colorado this morning as well just south of Trinidad. We never felt it on the direct opposite side of the state. It was about the same size as well.

Guess this means... The End is Near, The End is Near!

Its not like that at all. In order for the US government to pay its bills they have decided to sell the east coast of the USA to China and thus it is necessary to break it off from the mainland and make it ready for shipping...

yellowdingo wrote:

GeraintElberion wrote:

Instinctual.

Every time I hear that word I feel the pain of the real word instinctive having its ribs kicked in.

It's not just that it is an error, instinctive has a cadence I enjoy while instinctual falls to mush at the end.

Instinctual seems to be especially popular amongst young actors and actresses who can't explain what they do for a living.

In what way is instinctual an incorrect word? Language changes. The tipping point will simply be popularity of useage.

Well, it is replacing the commonly accepted ending of the word with one that is not commonly accepted, and doing so in a way that is clumsy, inelegant and sometimes confusing.

I said it was an error. I understand that language develops and evolves, that does not mean that it cannot be used inaccurately. This inaccuracy may be a good thing which leads to great joy amongst all the nations of the world (such as George Walker Bush's many verbal gaffes) but it is still an error.

Sometimes a word form which was once erroneous becomes commonly accepted and understood, at which point it becomes correct. The example of moot has already been used in this thread.

Occasionaly people fall into the trap of thinking that this development of language means that there can be no right and wrong. I would dispute that logic as a false dichotomy.

Because we are discussing such things I have my grammar and spelling cap on, I am driven to point out your incorrect spelling of usage.

Given that U was swapped with V at a certain point, Instinctual was Instinctval...

9. A villager is found torn to pieces. Everyone blames a Werewolf living in a Cave a day's travel from the village.

I want to create and market a cologne called "bad english."

english: (ng-lash) to verbally abuse, to yell at loudly.

Instinctual.

Every time I hear that word I feel the pain of the real word instinctive having its ribs kicked in.

It's not just that it is an error, instinctive has a cadence I enjoy while instinctual falls to mush at the end.

Instinctual seems to be especially popular amongst young actors and actresses who can't explain what they do for a living.

In what way is instinctual an incorrect word? Language changes. The tipping point will simply be popularity of useage.

All you need to know is that -ng appears in every word refering to: tongue, voice, speak, mouth, talk, chasm. As an Indoeuropean Root it appears in every language from english to indonesian. So put away your made up language child, the elder god is here to teach you how to speak your monkey grunts better.

This is part one of a series of Threads for the random generation of an Adventure Module. Feel free to contribute an Adventure Scenario to the numbered list.

100 Adventure Scenarios

1. A child is pushed down a village well by some bad individual. The PCs must descend the well to rescue the child from a subterranean water storage cistern and learn the villian's identity.

Black Death
Epidemiological studies suggest the disease was transferred between humans (which happens rarely with Yersinia pestis and very rarely for Bacillus anthracis), and some genes that determine immunity to Ebola-like viruses are much more widespread in Europe than in other parts of the world. Their research and findings are thoroughly documented in Biology of Plagues. More recently the researchers have published computer modeling demonstrating how the Black Death has made around 10% of Europeans resistant to HIV.-Wiki

So this virus came out of Africa, not Asia? And it was spread through human to human contact as opposed to fleas on rats? There would need to be signs of an ebola source 'Black Death' having originated in Africa and/or a resistance spike in the indigenous population. But if it emerged in Europe then the Resistance spike would only exist in europeans.

Genetic Resistance: Here was the mutation showing up again in the population...Areas of Europe that had been affected by the plague (including America, which was mostly settled by European plague survivors and their descendents) also had unusually high levels of CCR5-delta 32 — about fourteen per cent of the population compared to two percent in areas that never experienced the Black Death — such as Asia and Africa.

With a spread rate of 2 miles per day (that would be one eight mile hex per week in D&D map terms).

Before you all go crazy:

Gummi Bears
Dashing and daring,
Courageous and caring,
Faithful and friendly,
With stories to share.
All through the forest,
They sing out in chorus,
Marching along,
As their song fills the air.

CHORUS:
Gummi Bears,
Bouncing here and there and everywhere.
High adventure that's beyond compare,
They are the Gummi Bears.

Magic and mystery,
Are part of their history,
Along with the secret,
Of gummiberry juice.

Their legend is growing,
They take pride in knowing,
They'll fight for what's right,
In whatever they do.

CHORUS

(Repeat first verse)

CHORUS

Gummi Bears,
When a friend's in danger they'll be there,
Lives and legends that we all can share,
They are the Gummi Bears,
They are the Gummi Bears,
They are the Gummi Bears!

David Fryer wrote:

You know, if you just dump the damn bears you have a pretty good campaign setting. I even based a character on Cavin many, many, many years ago.

Make them the 'last gnomes' as the rest returned to the First world. It fits.

The Gummibears Setting has Elves, Gnomes, Ogres, Trolls and all sorts.

What they Should have in the DMG on Culture and Civilization is something along the lines of these:

A. THE CIVILIZATION AS A WHOLE
Technological Advances
1. The development of many new artistic forms and designs to express symbols of the earthly and supernatural power of urban centres.
2. The building of increasingly larger and more complex structures in the form of Store Houses, Palaces, Temples, Monuments to heroes and gods, and large scale public irrigation, water supply and drainage systems.
3. The invention and development arithmetic and geometry for complex record keeping, making estimations of the value of food and tools, and for building, making precise calendars, and measuring the passage of time.
4. The Development of Writing as a means of expressing rules for the new forms of social organization in growing urban centres and as a way to keep records of supernatural and political justifications for the new rules and their associated ruling elites.

Sociological improvements
1. A growing specialization of work combined with a developing local system within a town for the exchange and distribution of special objects and products.
2. Growth of Social integration amongst a rapidly expanding population in urban centres.
3. The development of trade networks for the exchange of goods and services with nearby urban centres.
4. The invention of rules for the collection and transport to a central urban centre of the surpluses of food produced by farmers and herders.
5. The Growth of political and religious leadership and membership in special organizations, as continuous residence in an urban centre began to replace social relations based on family and kinship – that is, the growth and differentiation of a “citizenship” in an urban centre began to replace personal identification through kinship.
6. The growth of a small ruling elite or class with privileges of access to material goods and to travel, special education and social deference from other ‘citizens’ of an urban centre, or group of centres.

B. THE RULING CASTE

MONARCHICAL ABSOLUTISM. The King or independent Chief enjoys absolute power.

EMINENT DOMAIN. All land, Livestock, and Game are the property of the monarch providing a right to income.

DIVINE AUTHORITY. The Ruler is a divine power or has access to divine Power.

RITUAL ISOLATION. The Monarch resides in physical isolation with a few attendants to do the Monarchs Bidding. Meetings involve acts of isolation by curtains, designated speakers,

INSIGNIA OF OFFICE. Royal status is displayed through symbolic regalia,

CAPITAL TOWNS. The Monarch resides in a capital and new rulers establish a new capital or residence.

ROYAL COURTS. The Monarch maintains a Court with assorted specialized staff. Pages, guards, chamberlains, etc.
PROTOCOL. Behaviour in the presence almost universally requires conformity to a process of behaviour. Indirect Interaction, Gifts, Abject Prostration, etc.

HAREMS. The ruler has a great many wives and or concubines.

QUEENS. At most royal courts a queen mother, a queen consort, a Queen Sister enjoy prestige sometimes outranking the Monarch. They will likely have their own estates and enjoy some political authority.

TERRITORIAL BUREACRACY. For Administrative purposes, the state is divided into administrative provinces with their own officials tasked with taxation and labour management. Such provinces will be subordinate to a central authority.

MINISTERS. Located in the Capital they work as assistants to the Monarch in the central Bureaucracy.

DUALITY OF ROLES. Ministers function in an assortment of areas of the bureaucracy.

TITLES. Hereditary or Term of Service.

SECURITY. Rivals for the throne are killed, imprisoned, or deported to maintain stability.

ELECTORAL SUCCESSION. Though the Monarch designates an Heir, the final say is in the hands of ministers.

PERIOD OF MOURNING. After the death of the Monarch. A period of social disorder occurs when candidates vie for power.

HECATOMB. Funerary Rites for a Monarch include acts of sacrifice, sometimes large scale slaughter.

I would not qualify Lovecraft as obscure. There are significantly sized Lovecraft sections in bookstores, after all, and once you get Cthulhu showing up in something like South Park or the Great Race showing up on Futureama or the Necronomicon (or similar books) showing up major motion pictures... that's starting to get mainstream.

Maybe not as mainstream as Twilight or Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, but certainly more mainstream than Hillbilly Hand Fishing or the Silmarillion.

Hey! There's nothing wrong with lifting fish out of the water using only your hands...It sounds awesome and manly...as long as you dont live someplace where the Water dwelling Lizards are thirty feet long and will eat you.

The Problem with Lovecraft is that no one understands it. They want there to be Cosmic elder Gods as the source of it all. They dont get that at superposition all life is the same life and he is talking about the symptoms of playing with black holes.

Has this show been remade or put back on the air? It was one of the few Disney cartoons that was good for it's entire run.

Not that i know of.

Despite the fact that there are earth references (Princess Marie met in several episodes is 'french', and some of her fathers Guard 'speak french', and The Tale of How the Ancient Gummi Bears flee the destruction of their way of life at the hands of humans by crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the World of the Gummi Bears is oddly fantastical as a setting and most un-earthlike.

The World of the Gummi Bears: There is a 'map' of the region detailed in the series which appears in an episode about the Great Gummiscope (an intercontinental Signal Laser/helioscope), and there is a World Map and Armillary Sphere which puts in an appearance in an Episode taking place in the Castle of Lady Bane where we see the Planet at the centre orbited by a Sun (around which a small world orbits).

Things of Interest:
Ancient Lost Technology (Lady Bane's Armillary Sphere - a Solar System model, Zeppelins, Signal Lasers, Submarines, Digging Mole Machines).
Places (A Flying Island, Abandoned Cities, Ruins, Monastaries, Castles, Inns, Taverns).

Characters:
'Duke' Sigmund Igthorn (an expelled Knight who failed to overthrow King Gregor; and is now hold up in the ruins of Castle Drekmore) exibits skills and Feats that are pretty awesome. He has Siege Weapon Engineering, Tracking, Riding (Horses and Flying Mounts), Sailing (ships), Leadership (even if it is a bunch of Ogres), and Knowledge of obscure Lore (Forgotton Places, Strange tree devouring insects, and soforth).
Frankly he is awesome. When he does become King (King Igthorn Part 1&2) he announces to the crowd that he has overthrown the 'Tyrant Gregor' and then has his ogres shake down the middle and wealthy class populace for a few thousand gold pieces in taxes.

King Gregor is a less than good King who seems to have the support of the masses. In one episode about the Crimson Avenger A Mother is seen telling her child that 'King Gregor needs their help' to justify paying Taxes - basically brainwashing children into loyalty to the regime.
He seems an indulgent Monarch with a soemtimes selfish brat of a princess and an army of less than honorable but loyal knights and guards. he laughs at some joke about making 'them eat cheesecake' which seems a laugh at the plight of hungry peasants.

Sir Victor Igthorn This is a creepy thing to have in a children's animated series. The virtuous knight - secretly a brother of Duke Igthorn' - keeps refering to 14 year old Princess Calla as a Blossoming, maturing Flower when he kisses her hand...causing her to faint. if it were in the real world this would be one of those scary old world tales where they have given a 14 year old as a bride to some 40 year old 'Knight'.

Frankly you will love Duke Igthorn as the 'better' man by the end of the series.

He is a Bard for Starters

I guess I should make clear that if an individual person happens to be awesome magically, that's pretty much required for any fantasy. It's the "this stuff runs in families and you can divide the world between those who are awesome and those who are muggles" thing that really, really gets me going. I do not believe in the divine right of kings or magicians.

It isnt if it doesnt appear in D&D: Families with a long history of Wizards...living in Mystaran realms like Glantri and Alphatia, Im sure there were others in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk.

Perhaps Kings do have a divine right to rule...Considering they used to sacrifice children to the Fire God Momus...we need to reassess which divine authority they represent.

I have to say that this is one of the things that make it hard for me to get through the Harry Potter books. The idea that some class of people are "inherently" more magical or better than others is one that I find absolutely foul, distasteful and repugnant. I have similar problems with midichlorians. Get your stupid hamhanded eugenics crap out of my fantasy, plzkthxbai.

And all the worse considering the lovers of Eugenics seem to be the ones generating the top selling novels with a cult following. Curse you Adolf and your Mien Kamph!

Back to the perpetual writers block it is...

Source: When did that happen?

Actually coin collections are formed when you dont spend your money and they wind up in a container or under the sofa with other stuff which is then rediscovered when your descendants decide fifty years later that they probably should clean up some of your old stuff.

Thats why i have a 1495 Chinese Coin...where the hell my ancestors got that from is a mystery.

"Greetings lesser beings." High Priest Thul Scrapes at his itchy Beard.
"Due to very bad droughts and over use of Fuel resources this year's festival of the infernal burning will be bought forward. You may now throw your children into the fire to prove your loyalty to Momus, Lord of the eternal flame."

Actually I think all of what is being discussed thusfar is progressing toward Feat based Psionics.

Aura of ill Luck [Charisma 13+, Level 1+]: Forces any target within 10' to reroll any sucessful dice roll for a chance it was a failure.
Invisibility [Charisma 18+, Level 3+]: Invisible to those of less Charisma.
Glamour [Charisma 15+, Level 1+]: Can appear as anything other than the reality. Allows ugly faries who look like exoskeletal pirana with dragonfly wings to look like beautiful miniature humans with butterfly wings.

The Problem is how long/often can you repeatedly use a Feat?

Crown, Third Eye, Heart, Center, Sacral, Root? Elaborate!

A Chakra Based Psionic System

Lets call STR, INT, WIS, CHA, CON, DEX our Chakras and their value will be the limit of Points you can allocate against them when activating a power.

Specific TEEP abilities would require the expenditure of points against particular CHAKRAS. Say Project Image requires the expenditure of 10 charisma points - now if you have Charisma 16, then your Charisma chakra is muddied and unusable until you spend time meditating to cleanse your aura. This is important because until you do cleanse your aura you have 6 Charisma. That can be important if you were planning on leading your army into battle and commanding your generals.

The precise cost of cleansing your aura might mean days per point revitalized meditating or it might require something else. perhaps recovery of points per day equal to Psionicist level.

Now consider The difference between Sun-yi Charisma 13 and Dor the Tyrant Charisma 25:

Sun-yi creates a Lesser Projected Image which appears as a floating form local to the PC and warns them they must make for the temple of Thok to retrieve the Crown of Fresnip.

Dor the Tyrant on the other hand creates a Greater Projected Image where his giant Head is floating above the whole Kingdom and he declares to all that the Kingdom has fallen and those who still stand against him will perish.

It means that depending on which Ability stat is advanced in points over exp, the psionicist can focus on abilities associates with particular stats...

Legendary Kobolds came with an aura of Ill Luck, while Gobelin means invisible behind cloth. Both might be charisma based psionic abilities and considering the Gremlin is seen as the converging offspring of both these races - having an aura of ill luck and invisibility...he is even a more powerful psionic.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

At a minimum, you should have a hyphen for "conformed-to", Dingo.

And even then, it's a clumsy wording.

Thanks for demeaning the intelligence of my country, though!

I often wonder how much worse message boards would be if people texted all their posts.

smrfmewata!

So should we establish a 26 base number set dictionary where every possible value is allocated a precise meaning? What do we allocate to yzzz? And how does that differ from zzzz?

Shadowborn wrote:

For the longest time they didn't believe there was a tuskless hairy elephant wandering the streets, even when they were told by an eight foot tall canary.

Funny story about that.

So, as you say: for years, Big Bird was the only one around when Snuffalumpagus would come by. They'd have a nice scene together, and then Snuffy would leave. Big Bird kept insisting to all the real people on Sesame Street that Snuffalumpagus was real, and nobody believed him. It was a comic bit.

See the problem?

Big Bird is written as a point-of-view character, like Kermit and Ernie. Kids are intended to put themselves in the place of Big Bird. And so here was this kid-proxy, telling adults over and over that something was happening when they weren't around, and nobody believed him. It was a child abuse scenario.

So, one day, Snuffalumpagus came around, and Big Bird was able to find other people, and everybody met Snuffy and they all had a nice time, and everybody said they were sorry they didn't believe Big Bird.

Woah! I never got that...Wasnt the public emergence of Snufflufagus mirrored by the loss of Mister Hooper (BB called him Mr Looper)? I thought it was about Big Bird dealing with the loss of Mr Hooper and the assumption that he had made up a friend who wasnt real in grief and only later do they all realize that BB's immaginary friend was real.

Seven Chakra based Awareness?

US Unmanned Global Bomber goes missing during 20x speed of sound test flight

Must have been lost to the alternate dimensions.

Burt and Ernie should marry?

Death to all Poisoners of Innocence!

I love how they are calling this an uprising by disaffected youth...I suddenly had this thought than if they continue to crush the young and impose on them tyranical belief systems that the young do not care for, the people currently in government are going to be shot dead by the young when they are old and senile and out of power.