Aethelwulfe's page

Hi Mark!

I started playing D&D in 1979. I love roleplaying and don't mind playing either gender. (My puzzle solving skills aren't always so great...)

One of my first DM's was dyslexic so he ran a role-playing intensive campaign verbally. (e.g. He ran the game from his mind, without any rule books, pens or paper at all, and just occasionally using dice to see if we met a difficulty or attack threshold he had estimated in his mind.)

His favorite way to start a game (both campaigns and mini-sessions) was to say "You wake up in a dark room. What do you do?" He was able to craft really fun stories/scenarios for serious gamers and those with no experience. In our first, long-running campaign, our characters woke up with no memory, and slowly discovered who we were during the course of many sessions over a summer.

When I saw your description, I knew I had to sign up!

John

I'm so incredibly very, very, very proud of my better half!

(And sometimes exhausted just from watching! But I've also enjoyed an abundance of wonderfully fun scenarios along the way!)

I've benefited from his GMing too many times to count. But he can be even more fun to play with. Kyshkumen turns the brightest shade of red when the game goes just that wee bit too far over the line...

Congrats on the 5th star, and may you have many more stars (as well as those killer *red* moments)!

"Entrance isn't far. We'll take you there.. He furrows his br
Ow in confusion. "Months? What've they made you do?"

His gaze passes over them looking at the state of their attire, nutrition and health, wondering if these have really been held for such a lengthy period of time.

"Dyin' one said chief made 'em do it. know anythin' about their boss?"
What in the Lion's name would scaley vermin want with three of these folk?

Had a great afternoon and evening yesterday...

Jessica Price led another fun board game session. This year our group of intrepids fell to a sandstorm in Forbidden Desert. Last year I got to be one of the Nuns on the Run. Gotta love Jessica's choice in games!

Andrea Brandt and I sat with Judy Bauer at the banquet, and I was able to ask her a bit about the diversity in gaming panel (which I missed this year). Last year, I attended two similar sessions - one at PaizoCon that included Judy and another focused on video games at GaymerX. After speaking with Judy, I am again gratified by Paizo's thoughtful approach to creating a fantasy world that strives to organically incorporate interesting characters and stories that reflect the wide interests of fans (and potential fans!).

I ran into Dennis Baker who was particularly pleased with the sneak-peek at artwork for the upcoming Monster Codex at the banquet. Having helped contribute to this interesting tome on the monstrous, he seemed psyched to see creatures like frog-bearing, pustule-covered Goblin and the big, uber-bad Ogre brought to 'life' in art.

The newly announced Giant Slayer Adventure Path brought my mind the AD&D Against the Giants series back in the early 1980's. I discussed APs with Lisa Stevens, whose first campaign included connecting and fleshing out several series of modules released by TSR (Scourge of the Slave Lords, Against the Giants, the Queen of the Spiders). I love that the modern APs provide the setting, background, connections, and campaign tools that GMs often had to round out themselves back in these "ancient history" days of RPGs. It was particularly nice that Frank Mentzer was honored at PaizoCon, as he was such a key part of the development of the game and those early modules (Temple of Elemental Evil!) that have grown into such richly rewarding series today.

This morning I had a cool session of Library of the Lion with Sean, Sarah, and Robert, a fun and smart crew from Bellingham, WA. Nicholas Milasich from "just north of LA" (I guess would that be northern southern California ;) ran a great table! (Even if my cavalier won't stop talking to his shield now...)

Last night, during the "PFS Special" test run my half-orc barbarian rogue had to endure four Paladins, but that wasn't the worst of it, as Aroden also showed up in the most Painful way. ;) My thanks to Dawn K (Seattle), James K (Minneapolis), Alex G (Oregon), and Feral for showing PainLord what holy PCs can accomplish when they worship gods who aren't dead!

dot

dot

Busy day at work today, but I'm definitely mulling character ideas.... I've always wanted to play a Halberdier.

But will there be Cards Against Humanity in the PFS area?

Oh, I guess there is. It's called Bonekeep II, right? ;)

Seriously, last year I was a back-up judge for Bonekeep I and I was able to watch a dozen different tables try to tackle this extra-tough scenario. It was one of my favorite experiences - watching how each group progressed, where different tables decided to flee, and which hearty ones made it all the way through.

A great experience - if you're up for the challenge.

I'm a 47-year old bisexual male, and I've been playing since I was 13 so I have too many characters to count.

I play male and female characters, although I tend to play females more in groups I am more comfortable with. (Over the years, I've had plenty of gamers comment on how they are uncomfortable playing the opposite gender, or even playing with people who do.)

I think almost all sexual orientations have been represented in the range of characters I've played, although a fairly significant percentage have been bisexual. In addition to some strictly straight and exclusively same-sex oriented characters, my bisexual characters run the gamut from very attracted to both genders to some who are primarily attracted to one or the other.

(The one exception - I don't think if I've every played an exclusively lesbian character. I think my female characters have been straight or bisexual, except for one virgin shield maiden who was fairly asexual.)

As far as attractiveness, my characters are all over the map. I've played large, rough and tough, ugly males, smaller pretty boys, a tall and extremely attractive "super-hunk" kind of guy and plenty of average looking guys. My characters have also included large women, plain women, and very attractive women (including a stunning cleric of Hanali, the Elven Goddess of Romance in Greyhawk).

My favorite races tend to be human, half-elf, and halfling, but I've played all the major races over time. I've also played all of the traditional classes except for monk.

When I work on the back stories of my characters, I usually consciously choose gender and race, but once I have the general idea things like their personality, sexuality, and attractiveness generally flow from the story and often just seem to grow organically.

When I was a kid, my parents signed me up for swimming lessons, tennis lessons, t-ball team, basketball, and more. I was a total klutz and not good at any athletic endeavor *except* for swimming.

It was suburban Chicago, so the swimming lessons were at the high school and public pools. The local waterways (ponds, sloughs, canals) were o.k. for ice skating in winter, but not clean/safe enough for swimming. Boy Scout camp increased my abilities, including longer distance (three mile) swims across various lakes and life guarding.

That's persisted my entire life, whether I was in my skinnier phases or at a heavier weight. I've never been able to play sports worth a darn but swimming is just natural to me.

The geographic and historic situation for Taldor definitely scream the middle Byzantine Empire to me (pre-Manzikert, circa 1000 AD). The loss by Taldor of the western lands closely echo Byzantium's role as the Eastern Roman Empire, standing nearly 1000 years after Rome and the western provinces fell to successor states. As Gnoll Bard said, the conflict with Qadira is also nicely paralleled by Byzantine position as the "bulwark" of Europe (from the Medieval Christian perspective) against Middle Eastern foes/invaders/conquerors. (Byzantium fought Persians, Arabs, and eventually Turks for hundreds of years before losing all of their provinces and the city eventually falling itself).

A decadent aristocracy yearning for former imperial glory can be seen in many real world places and eras, but the sexual decadence really evokes late Ancien Regime (pre-Revolutionary) France for me. (The symbolic example given is that to be socially correct, French noble dinner hosts during this era needed to invite a guest, that guest's spouse, and that guest's lover to be polite. Basically, socially institutionalized menage a trois.)

I think the early Russian Imperial artifacts are a very nice touch for Taldan items. (Since many in early Tsarist Russia considered themselves to be the "Third Rome," direct successors to Byzantine heritage of the "Second Rome," those styles mesh really nicely with a Byzantine feel, too).

There are plenty of more "High Medieval" elements in Taldor which don't exactly parallel Byzantium (or pre-Revolutionary France either). To me this is similar to Andoran's echoes of Revolutionary America, evoking those 18th Century ideas moved into a more traditionally "Medieval" setting.

I think the designers have said that no area in Golarion is supposed to be an exact replica/pseudo-version of a real world country or culture. They've drawn inspiration for each area from various historical and fantasy cultures, as well as their own ideas. So I use what works for me (including a mish-mash of Byzantine, French aristocratic, and fantasy/medieval elements for my interpretation of Taldor).

Perhaps it is Eli's eyes, or Beagan's fickle attention, but neither of them sees any evidence of a squire in the antechamber.

Fickle? Who's fickle? Why, Beagan is totally focused on serving all the Big R stands for, advancing Cause of Liberation, Freedom and Justice for all types of....

(A Gnoman body stiffens and a petrified, outstretched arm points) "SQUIRREL!"

Belim, LG Dwarven Cleric of Torag

1) Torag
2) Spreading Goodness (especially helping/healing those in need)
3) Dwarves
4) Taldan interests
5) Pathfinder Society
6) Building things (smithing, masonry, etc.)

For those who put the Society far down their list, would you be okay with negative consequences for choosing one of the options higher on your list should they conflict?

Belim has put his personal morals above his faction in the past (and has lost some prestige because of those choices), and I'm absolutely o.k. with that. The same would apply to conflicts between his priorities and the society's interests.

Garrick, CG Halfling Sorcerer

1) Being a Good Guy (aiding the innocent, opposing evil oppression)
2) Making people laugh
3) Silver Crusade
4) Pathfinder Society
5) Having fun
6) Andoran (switched factions during the faction expansion, still has some fondness for the freedom-loving nation, even if he's not into their political machinations)

Rhonvanyr, CG Elven Wizard

1) Elves
2) Pathfinder Society / Grand Lodge
3) Avoiding contamination by lesser beings (i.e., non-Elves)
4) Helping lesser beings

Darius, LN Half-Orc/Buff Guy with a big sword

1) Pathfinder Society (a refuge from racial discrimination)
2) Qadira
3) Anything that beats on Orcs
4) Money

Basilon, CG Human Cavalier

1) His own pleasure
2) His own prestige
3) His noble patrons
4) Taldor
5) Pathfinder Society

Congratulations to Andi Brandt who ran her 100th table tonight so she now has her 4th star!

She's our local store coordinator, our area VO, and runs the bestest conventions and games ever! (Of course, I may be a little biased, as she is also my better half... ;)

"Classical" study of polyandry (found in Murdock's ethnogrphic atlases of the 1950's and 1960's) seems to have focused on groups in the Himalayas and the South Pacific. (See Wikipedia.) More recent studies note a more widespread occurrence (both in the Wikipedia article and the citation/abstract/introduction to a recent study published in Human Nature below.)

A Survey of Non-Classical Polyandry
By: Katherine E. Starkweather & Raymond Hames

Published in the journal Human Nature (2012) 23:149–172
DOI 10.1007/s12110-012-9144-x

Abstract
We have identified a sample of 53 societies outside of the classical
Himalayan and Marquesean area that permit polyandrous unions. Our goal is to broadly describe the demographic, social, marital, and economic characteristics of these societies and to evaluate some hypotheses of the causes of polyandry. We demonstrate that although polyandry is rare it is not as rare as commonly believed, is found worldwide, and is most common in egalitarian societies. We also argue that polyandry likely existed during early human history and should be examined from an
evolutionary perspective. Our analysis reveals that it may be a predictable response to a high operational sex ratio favoring males and may also be a response to high rates of male mortality and, possibly, male absenteeism. Other factors may contribute, but our within-polyandry sample limits analysis.

Introduction
Social scientists are under the impression that polyandry is rare. In many texts, ranging from introductory anthropology to those on marriage and sexuality, one finds generalizations that polyandry is an exceptionally rare marital form occurring in only four of the 565 societies in Murdock’s World Ethnographic Sample (Murdock
1957). Occasionally the figure of seven is given, citing Murdock’s 1,167-society Ethno-graphic Atlas (Murdock 1967). The low incidence of polyandry is frequently echoed in review articles of marriage systems. Reviews by polyandry experts note that there are around 28 polyandrous societies in one classical area, the Tibetan plateau (Peter 1963; Cassidy and Lee 1989), substantially more than is normally presented.
Knowing that polyandry was practiced among the Yanomamö and Inuit cultures, we decided to search for the literature outside of the core or classical area, and we were able to uncover 53 cases of what we call non-classical polyandry (Starkweather 2010) to distinguish these societies from those commonly mentioned in the area of the
Himalaya mountains shared by India, Nepal, and Tibet, as well as the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. While the frequency of polyandry as a marriage option in non-classical societies is rarer than in classical societies, these unions are culturally legitimate modes of marriage and are found in every part of the world. Our goal here
is to describe the social, demographic, and economic characteristics of non-classical polyandrous societies and, where we can, evaluate some hypotheses of polyandry.

We believe this worthwhile because Murdock (1949:25) influentially said, “poly-andry is so infrequent a phenomenon that there is no justification for assigning to it . . . an important place in the evolution of social organization.” However, as we shall show, the occurrence of polyandry, especially among egalitarian groups, suggests that it does in fact hold a place in human evolutionary history. Furthermore, its existence and adaptiveness has been debated by evolutionarily informed researchers even though they have focused on what we call classical polyandry (see Hrdy 2005 for an exception).

I'd like to reiterate this. If you believe a post is inappropriate or offensive, or if you think the poster is trolling or not posting in good faith, don't respond to it. Flag it, and (assuming the post is in fact inappropriate) we'll deal with it.

I didn't realize trolling was a reason to flag a post. If that's the case, I should probably go flag most of a current thread....

For some of us, PaizoCon isn't over yet!

It's a day after the official end of the Con, but a hardcore group (with later flights from SeaTac) is still drinking it up and comparing PFS notes in the hotel bar.

Ogre and Fiona have left, but Robin (VC of LA), John Choy from New York, and Murry and Ben from Australia are with Verdigris and myself still holding down the bar, talking PFS (and maybe drinking it up a little) before our flights....

DdeI was lucky enouigh to play in Wesley Schneider's "At the edge of madness" yesterday.kin Set in the Saphron House in Ustalav, it used the "Dread" system for mechanics. It definetly rekindled my interest in horror gaming.

On the strictly PFS side, I had a great table for the special, including a GM recruited at the last minute to run cold and two players in from England prepping to run it for Paizocon UK in two weeks. In their words, it was the longest slot zero ever (counting travel time to/from Britain.

The entire special PFS effort at PaizoCon won an "Overwhelming Victory." A cool end to a very fun evening.

I've had the pleasure of having both of them run sessions for me over several conventions. Thanks for all the fun over the years and congratulations on your star-dom! I'm sure all the players who have enjoyed your sessions really appreciate your creativity, dedication, and just plain kick-butt fun!

I'm already hooked on the Pathfinder Comic series, and this tidbit is piquing my interest even more!

(I'm still jonesing for issue #4 to arrive, and now I'll be even more impatient for #5! You're killin' me! (In the best way possible. ;)

Very difficult stance on goblins

My Dwarf character doesn't find it difficult to stand on goblins. After they have been properly dispatched, of course... ;)

D&D
1979
14

Alex Greenshields wrote:

"I am the very model of the modern Venture Cap-i-tan,
I inculcate the newbies with the game rules I am rapid in.

I'm getting scary flashbacks to high school glee club colliding with my gaming habit. Eyes are bleeding.

Glee club, eh? Does that mean we'll get some live Bardic performances next time we get to play at a table with you? ;)

Seriously - Our thanks and congratulations to you and all of those who do so much for PFS!

Politically, Taldor seems it has many parallels with the medieval Byzantine Empire, such as:

- the decadence of the nobility;

- the air of superiority because of ancient imperial rule over its "lost" provinces (Rome dominated the Mediterranean basin as Taldor once dominated the Inner Sea);

- and as the bulwark of the northern continent (Avistan/Europe) versus foreign intruders from the east (Byzantium vs. Persian & Arab & Turkic empires; Taldor vs. Qadira & Kelesh Empire).

Racially, the people in the Byzantine heartland (Greece & Anatolia) had European and Middle Eastern ancestors, just as the Taldan people draw from Avistan and Kelesh peoples.

(Spain shares some of these characteristics, but Spain's empire in the Mediterranean didn't cover anything like the area or time that that Roman/Byzantine Empire.)

I'm eavesdropping on Verdigris (my better half) is running of Kobold's and Constructs (a new MLL playtest) and I love hearing the play. The "Three Stooges," Joshua, Patrick, Fiona and Ogre are figuring out just what the title characters have to do with each other. Sounds lilke some great roleplay (and some moral dilemma's too boot).

Had a great time playing Shades of Ice III with the VC from Denver this afternoon. I had the best time fumbling a diplomacy role and later refraining from killing the big baddie (and therefore losing a PA), confirming that sometimes the most fun comes from "losing."

Also, I ran into my DM from college at the banquet tonight. That was cool. ;)

The selection of good beer - both the variety available at Whole Foods and the tasty pints/liters on tap at the Crab Pot - was definitely a topic of conversation at our end of the "Meet and Greet" (along with plenty of RPG shop talk, PFS mods, and even favorite Shakespeare/and fantasy authors).

Gotta love a conversation that runs from the Shadow Lodge to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"...

Oh, and PainLord saying I'd never post anything.

To that, I'll just say "Piddlespot" myself. ;)

Painlord's PFS-esque Scenario: Sunday 2pm to 7pm @ PaizoCon Hotel.

For heroically focused PFS characters, lvls 1 to 5. Characters of Iomedean or Arodenite worship will have strong ties to the outcome of his scenario.

GM:Painlord

Signups:
#1 VC Eric B, he of the promiscuous sorceress
#2 Aethelwulf (John B) - 4th level PFS sorcerer?
#3
#4
#5
#6

Feel free to sign yourselves up.

Official session usually run until 10pm (or later - it depends on the people running them) on Friday and Saturday. Early afternoon on Sunday is when things usually wind down.

Fans will have a chance to submit their own events to run (if previous years are any indication).
My advice is always come a day early and leave the day after the convention - that way you have a chance to catch up on after-hours events and last-minute goodbyes (and catch up on sleep!).

Thanks for the info!

My wife and I purchased our PaizoCon tickets and we will be first-time attendees in 2011. We're making travel plans to include the Meet and Eat on Thursday, the banquet on Saturday (we just bought our banquet tickets!), and of course there will be plenty of gaming and sessions on Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

Does any one know how late official con sessions/events will last on Sunday?

Our local mini-cons usually end at 4 or 6 ish on Sunday afternoon - is that when official PaizoCon happenings will come to a close? I didn't see anything officially posted yet, but I figure previous con-goers would have a clue of when things typically wind down... (We're trying to figure out whether we will fly home late Sunday or early Monday, and it looks like we can get some reasonably-priced plane tickets if we buy soon.)