Bjørn Røyrvik's page

After City of Delights, which was fine, I started Kafka's The Metamorphosis on the bus to work today, and am nearly done with it. It's a short little thing, under 100 pages, so I can pat myself on the back that I'm making good headway on my ever increasing To Read pil. Counting in units of books rather than pages, obviously.

After a couple of days of hard work but no adventures, one of the colonists reports being attacked by a horrid creature that tried to choke her. The PCs do some snooping and find tracks that lead to the well just outside their new home. They descend and find a tunnel. Entering they encounter a few chokers. The PCs engage and some questionable choices occur. Vår forgets she is a spellcaster and moves so she can get a clear shot with her crossbow, gets charged and is quickly reduced to negatives by a choker.
Tibor decides to increase his damage by letting the chokers hit him and hope they impale themselves on his spiky hide. They do but don't care and deal a lot of damage in the process before going down. The PCs fell two and the third runs off. Fortunately we had a good amount of healing so we could heal up before heading further in. It turns out we had been fighting young chokers and the parents were nastier. Fortunately the dice were more in our favor this fight and despite taking some damage, we prevailed without too much difficulty.

Once the chokers are killed, the rest of the 'dungeon' is easily cleared. The crysmals are not obviously dangerous and seem concerned with protecting the precious crystals rather than outright murder, so Tibor convinces the others to avoid killing things merely protecting what he conceives may be their eggs. Fortunately, they agree. Possibly influenced by the fact that healing is running out and they don't want to tempt fate.
The last arm of the cave sees a couple of darkmantles attack. Tibor again allows them to attach themselves to Tibor, take damage, and this time it has the desired effect of making the creatures disengage and run off. Once their darkness effect runs out they are picked off by ranged attacks.

The PCs exit the cave through the back passage, hide it, and decide to not tell anyone about this place. They are sure that if word gets out there are valuable crystals down there, some greedy person will go down, bug the crystal creatures, and probably get themselves killed. They return to the villlage and report that they killed the monsters and everyone is safe now. They tell the whole story to Ramona and she agrees that keeping the crystals secret is a good idea.

This done the PCs hope they can get back to being good little colonizers. This lasts another day or so before Ramona asks them to do some scouting. There are other colonists scouting the area but she wants a more complete picture of the island than she has. The PCs agree and just before they head out a breathless scout comes running to inform the village that her partner is stuck in quicksand. The PCs run headlong all the way, only barely getting stuck themselves in their haste to save their acquaintance-they-totally-knew-before-he-was-introduced-for-this-adventure- segment. Bo-bi had the best plan: tie a rope to his horse and send Aidu to fly out with and drop the end on the poor guy. Milo had conveniently waited until the PCs were there before failing his checks to stay afloat, and so cannot grab the rope. Sylvia and Tibor jump into the quicksand to try to help but Sylvia has the better potions to help and Tibor waddles back onto safe ground and grabs the rope. Sylvia manages to grab hold of Milo and the rope and drag him up enough for him to get some air and grab hold of the rope. Getting him out after this is easy. When it becomes known that Milo makes fermented beverages, three of the PCs are extra glad they saved him. Tibor never acquired a taste for rotten vegetable juice, so he's only regularly glad to have saved Milo.

After escorting the two exhausted NPC scouts the PCs do some scouting of their own. They come across some ruins which are only partially covered with vegetation. Tibor gets very excited at what little is shown and runs ahead of the rest of the party to find more architecture. As they approach what appears to be a stage of some sort ringed with pillars, they activate a magical effect. An illusion of a human appears and says something in a language unknown to the PCs, though Tibor wonders if it is related to Minean. The player spend some time ribbing Vår's player for not having Comprehend Languages. When leveling up he had asked for recommendations for his 1st level spell, and had been given CL. He was just about settled on that spell when he saw Snowball and chose that instead.

At the sight of the illlusions, Tibor's excitement dies a little. He had hoped this would be tortle ruins but it appears to be human. Still, it's somewhat exciting. The PCs do not have much time to poke around before they notice a small group of monkey goblins approaching. They try to hide but are noticed. Tibor steps forth, spreads his hands and tries to sound calm and non-threatening. They attack anyway. The battle is pretty easy though Vår is again reduced to negatives. When leveling Vår's player had asked for tips on what feat to take, and Toughness was mentioned. He chose Point Blank Shot instead, and the GM had to point out that if he had chosen Toughness he would have still been standing by the end of the combat. Cue some more ribbing of Vår's player.
He gripes a bit about feeling useless at compared to the martials and we tell him to just let us have this because in a few levels' time he will be outclassing us easily. Thus mollified the PCs check out the rest of the area. Tibor makes rubbings of all the writing he can find, does some sketches of the area, and makes a bunch of notes.

They return to Ramona, and she accompanies them the next day to look at the place and translate the languages. The recording turns out to be some form of proclamation about how everything is fine and people should just get on with their lives. The scene from the Naked Gun about how there is nothing to see comes to mind, just replace the exploding building with the Great Rain of Fire.

With our first real Clue to the AP's plot in hand, we end the session.

An unexpected sequel to a guilty pleasure: the reluctant yuri harem There's no freaking way I'll be your lover! Unless... is back.

Kaya-chan isn't scary is about a young girl who can see ghosts and punch them. The ghosts are pretty nasty, similar to what we see in Mieruko-chan.

Wash it all away is a slice of life story about a girl who likes cleaning. Goodness knows why, but it's a relaxing story.

I read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, the third LoEG book by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Good, but I think the first two were better. This one was more like a Hellblazer story than the previous ones. Now I love me some Hellblazer but it didn't feel quite like the first two stories.
I'm nearly done with City of Delights, an al-Qadim supplement. I'm slowly making my way through the setting.

After this, probably the newest issue of Threshold, the Mystara fanzine. It's always good.

Good to see people appreciating Tasting History.

In a tradition from my grandmother's semi-Southernish roots, I had hoppin' john for breakfast yesterday (my wife does not understand the appeal; more for me). Dinner was shepard's pie.
Today will be something vegetable heavy, possibly Thai green curry.
Tomorrow will be mashawa, an Afghan soup with a bajillion different recipes. The one I use is the one from the Kabul restaurant in Madison.

First game of the new year slated for Sunday. The wife's group will by playing tomorrow.

RIP.

Oooh. I'm envious.

I did indeed read HHGttG, and RatEotU. The experience was, sadly, what I expected. I remember the first time I read it I was giggling and laughing non-stop. This time around I mostly just smiled a bit and gave a little puff of enjoyment on occasion. Part of it is that I remembered just about everything that was said in HHGttG, and jokes are rarely as good the second time around, much less several more times. RatEotU surprised me by how much I had forgotten of it.

Nearly done with Tanith Lee's Eva Fairdeath. Not her best but I'm enjoying it. Some times I wonder what would happen if I read books without knowing who wrote them; would I like them as much on their own merit than tied to a name I have decided I like? I'm not sure I want to answer that question.

How is Oliver's cookbook? I've been largely unimpressed by his cooking videos on Youtube.

Ditto, though I confess to being influenced by Uncle Roger.

Chef John from FoodWishes is my go-to for ideas and recipes.

Work today, then vacation until just after Christmas. Will spend at least one day just chilling with Ruins of Azcan (Azlant) planned in the evening, the rest of the time spent helping my mother with cooking and cleaning for the big day, last minute shopping, heading to Bergen for a few days to see my sister and her kids, seeing the wife's family, etc.

It's not just the personality, it's the visual design.

Gloval
Nemo

"False Value" was another entry in the series. With the first BBEG taken care of they need a new direction, and this one had a whiff of the Laundry Files, for better and worse.

Maybe I'll reread HHGTTG for my next book. Or one of the two remaining Lee books I got this year before the Christmas haul arrives. I can thank one of the members here, I'm too lazy to go back in the thread and find out exactly who, for introducing me to Thriftbooks. It has an extensive collection of Lee, which means my wife has an cheap(ish) and easy source of presents for me for years to come.

In addition to what I listed above I've watched Dusk Beyond the End of the World. It's fine.
We tried watching OPM season 3 but gave up after two episodes. I really do not understand companies that have a popular name and decide to shoot it in the legs by not spending enough money on it to make it even average quality.

Apart from this season's stuff I've been making my way through Nadia, The Secret of Blue Water. Bit of a kids story, a supporting character who is so close to SDF Macross' Admiral Global that I'm surprised the studio wasn't sued, and aliens and supertech. I'm a bit annoyed at the pacing, coming as it is from the pre-seasonal format, but it's good enough that I'm going to finish it.

In BECMI/AD&D Hollow World we had a pacifist cleric at one point. He healed people and helped out with non-combat things, but did nothing to directly hurt or aid in hurting opponents, and always tried to find a diplomatic solution. The character was fine, just a bad fit when everyone else was pretty much a stereotypical borderline insane murderhobo.

In d20 games we've definitely had some characters that do not directly deal damage but are great at helping others either deal or avoid damage.

"Crier's War" was OK. Magic robot uprising, robots make slaves of humans, human girl meets robot girl and sparks fly.
It's obviously the first book in a series but I doubt I'll pick up the rest. Unfairly, I keep comparing it to Tanith Lee's "Metallic Love", which is unfair because a) they really aren't the same story apart from featuring robot uprisings and love across species barrier, and b) not everyone can write like Lee.

On to Ben Aaronovich's False Value, another of the Rivers of London series. I really should have reread HHGTTG before starting this one because the references (pop-cultural references being a core of the protagonist's POV) are thick to the point where I can barely recognize some of them.

Thys yule, a collection of medieval and early modern English Christmas carols. It's been a staple of Christmas music in my family for over thirty years.

Other than googling for solutions, nothing, I'm afraid.

I liked that movie. Much better than John Wick.

"When the lights go out" was a really good urban fantasy story. Two more books by Lee in the To Read pile out of the 8 I got after the better part ten years since my last purchase of one of her books. It's been a good year in that regard.

On to Crier's War by Nina Varela. It is a very pretty hardcover edition.

The trip to the secondary landing site was mostly smooth, if slow and unpleasant. We encountered a couple of wild pigs, of which we killed one and got some fresh meat. On the coast we met a strange thing - a dead man piloted by an oversized nautilus. The fight was mostly fairly easy except that Bo-bi got grabbed by the thing and it attempted to stick its tentacles into his brain. The GM was very nice and allowed a save against the poison. The player complained about SoD poison at second level and asked me to get the GM stop putting that sort of thing in the game. I told him he was asking the wrong person because I approve of the occasional SoD effect in a game, at every level.

We meet up with the rest of the second wave and almost immediately get embroiled in what appears to be brewing trouble. Several of the colonists are arguing vociferously for returning to Davania because they don't feel safe here. Ramona, the leader of the trip, again turns to the PCs to help smooth things over in the hopes that fellow colonists will find it easier to talk the dissenters down than she has. The other PCs do well but Tibor flubs his roll. He tried to comfort Petilia (?) the scribe but she is not reassured by his observations that every new settlement faces difficulty and success is not given and they will succeed, and must just try the best they can to make things work. Vår, who is (as is expected of this player) specc'ed for Diplomacy, swoops in and fixes the issue after calming down her first target.

We then are asked to fix the issue of the super slow ship. This is easily handled by Aidu and Tibor, primarily, since they can swim. Sylvia and Vår make minor contributions to the fight and Bo-bi spends the combat trying to rid himself of his armor so he can jump in and help. The fight is over well before he is. They do however spot some more grindylows watching the ship. Ramona again asks the party to take care of this things before the ship departs. Tibor decides to swim out to meet them, assuming he can either handle them if they attack, considering how he handled two in the first session, or can flee if they prove too much to handle. The grindylow flee but he manages to track them back to what he assumes is their lair. He returns to the rest of the colonists and informs them of his findings.

Ramona wants the PCs to 'handle' the issue to prevent further attacks and show the nervous members that things are being Taken Care Of. A brief discussion follows where we try to decide whether we should wait a night, in which case the ship would return to Thincol's Jewel and we would again need to trek cross country, or we should handle things now, in which case the ship will wait for us, considering it needs a few hours to get things ready in any case. We decide on the latter and head out, chooing to rappel down the small cliff rather than risk being caught in a boat on the open water. Clearing out the cave is mostly pretty easy, with only Salttooth proving dangerous, reducing Sylvia to 0 hp and wounding Vår. Tibor was a good tank, thanks to his AC being high enough they needed a natural 20 to hit, but poor rolls meant he was not as dangerous as he should be: he had a better than 50% chance to hit on paper but hit at best 30% of the time, and half the times he did hit he rolled 1s for damage. I got the feeling Vår again did more damage with crossbows and attack roll cantrips into melee but that may just be me being grumpy.

Despite this opposition the PCs prevail and Salttooth begged for mercy in broken Minean. Tibor, the only speaker of Minean, stops attacking and informs the party. There followed a brief discussion about what to do but the final decision was put off until next session since it was well past my bedtime.

I suspect Thanksgiving will be put off until next year some time, and at least until next week considering I work late this week, depending on what my mother feels like doing. I volunteer to do most of the work but she's set on doing at least some of it herself.

"A stroke of the pen" was generally decent. Humorous but didn't make me do more than smile or vaguely chuckle but that may be more a me problem than the quality of the writing. You can tell it's early works: some polishing is needed, and I think Pratchett worked best in long form. Still worth picking up if you like Pratchett.

On to Tanith Lee's When the lights go out.

With most of the front-liners low on HP the party decides to spend the night in what they consider the most defensible part of town they have explored so far. Nothing attacks the party during the night and the next day they explore the rest of the town after some healing.

The rest of the looti-, er, exploration goes smoothly with me shaking his old school head at the amount of magic items we get right off the bat. This day Sylvia has prepared Detect Magic and has a rank in Spellcraft so we can actually identify the items we find. A few things we find strike us as odd. Well, odder than the Roanoke-ing of the colony. The colony's charter was found hidden away in the house of the governor pro tem, and a bunch of names were stricken from the list. The logs found in the council house were stuffed in a bag for later perusal. Aidu notices a strange metal spider thingy and utterly fails to catch it, and is full of sour grapes about it and does not bother to properly inform the party about it. Fortunately we heard his little attempt and managed to get some information of him.

The food storehouse is full of cockroaches and Tibor leads the retreat since no one has anything that can handle them. Outside Sylvia casts a bunch of Light spells on the PCs and their equipment, and this prevents the roaches from being too bothersome on the second attempt. The party recovers fair amount of food and packs it up. The colony full explored, we collate our findings and set out to meet up with the ship at the secondary anchorage. We take with us such things as we can carry and would find useful, primarily food. Sylvia is weirdly fixated on the blacksmith's anvil and wants to bring it along. The rest of us think that if it was undisturbed for a month or more, it will likely remain undisturbed for a few more days and no one wants to lug a freaking anvil cross country. We level up and leave the abandoned village.

During the trip the party comes across an ankheg, which resulted in a surprisingly long fight since both sides spend most of the time missing. In fact, the PC that hit most often was Vår, who ignored poor Dexterity bonus and melee penalties and hit every round. Tibor, on the other hand, missed every attack for three rounds straight and did minimum damage on the one attack he did hit with. Still, the ankheg rolled equally poorly so it wasn't a difficult fight.

We end the session there.

We watched it this weekend and enjoyed it. Visually excellent - very Gothic.

"Dragonshadow" was good. Scarier than the first book, more worldbuilding, and some very Slaaneshi demons. Looking forward to next book in the series.

Currently reading A stroke of the pen, a collection of older stories by Terry Pratchett, some of them under a pseudonym. So far I'm enjoying them. A lot of them are Christmas-related, for some reason.

True, but even so I have players who have expressed interest in trying the MT in PF1.

My one experience with MT is from 3.5 and it was a great support character. He always had spells available, even when the primary casters were running on empty. He always had something useful for any situation. He didn't offend the enemy to the same degree as the full wizard, nor did he heal or buff as well as the full clerics, but he was a jack of all trades and that was useful.
The Practised Spellcaster feat does feel like a bit of a tax but it does really help, and I allow it in PF.

Not as good as a full caster but fun and flavorful and useful.

My GM burnout has lasted longer than I expected, so Otheriel’s penultimate stage on her quest for Immortality is put on hold some more. After the better part of a year of WanG the GM of that story wanted a break and my wife has stepped up to run Ruins of Azlant for the group, adapted to Mystara. The new group has nothing to do with the old one, and no one is allowed to worship the two who have become Immortal since RoA takes place before they have ascended.

The starting island is in the Thanegioth archipelago in the Sea of Dread, not far from the infamous Isle of Dread. Thyatis, expansionist as it is, has started encroaching on the Sea of Dread from its colonies on Davania and one of the newest is a small island called Thincol’s Jewel.

Dramatis Personae

Tibor
Tortle monk from Zul (the ‘civilized’ tortles). A young, quiet farmer bit by wanderlust who signed up with a Thyatian expedition to the settlement of Thincol’s Jewel for free travel to an area he wanted to explore. He has an interest in tortle history, especially the idea that there was an ancient advanced civilization of tortles. He has an old artefact he is convinced is from this supposed civilization, and he thinks the Sea of Dread might hold more signs of this civilization. As he is from the Savage Coast he suffers from the Red Curse, mutating him and giving his shell and hide a scarlet tinge and spiky growths that need regular trimming. I made this character simply so I could play a teenage mutant ninja tortle.

April Mai, called Vår (“spring”)
Gnome unicorn sorcerer with no Spellcraft or Knowledges because the player is physically incapable of making characters who don’t max Charisma, Diplomacy and Bluff, and heard we were going to need Swim in this AP and so went out of his way to get Swim as a class skill. Bit of an airhead. A good friend of hers came on the first wave of settlers to Thincol’s Jewel and she wanted to follow, planning on selling her magical knowledge to the other settlers.

Bo-bi Nuar and Aidu
Human Cavalier. Bo-bi is from the Pearl Islands, a fairly recent Thyatian conquest and the type of person that adapts to the new regime almost entirely, ignoring many ancestral traditions. When he was young he found a water drake egg which he took home and cared for until it hatched. Aidu is a dumb, vain, cowardly lizard who at present is more trouble than he’s worth.

Sylvia
Human druid (herbalist). Came to explore new lands and plants, and offer her services as an apothecary to the colony. Fairly happy-go-lucky.

Session 1

The trip to Thincol’s Jewel was uneventful, though stories of the rough storms in the Sea of Dread and aquatic monsters were constant worries among the passengers and crew.
Tibor spent most of the time on deck out of the way of the crew, meditating and watching the waves. Bo-bi spent most of his time entertaining his warhorse and his drake, neither of whom liked being stuck on a boat for weeks, while Sylvia and Vår socialized.

Upon arriving at Thincol’s Jewel the PCs were annoyed at being called upon to investigate the apparently deserted settlement while the ship took everyone else to the back-up port. The players did not make too much of a stink about this because it was obvious where the rails of the adventure went and we wanted to get on with it. Tibor put his belongings in the ship’s boat and jumped into the water as he outmasses everyone else put together (tortles are chonky). He easily solos the grindylow who show up to attack the PCs.

On shore Aidu is attacked by the fuath and fails his Reflex save against the clingy water, but AIdu can breath water so isn’t in any danger. He screams like a scared chicken anyway. Bo-bi dispatches it easily with his sword and the PCs successfully make their required skill rolls to notice the sabotaged canoe. They make their way into the seemingly abandoned settlement. They look around and notice how everything seems to have been devoid of the inhabitants for weeks. All the fields are overgrown with weeds and one of them seems to be infested with dire moles. They first enter the smithy and handle the monkey goblins with ease, making note of things to loot recover for later use by the new colonists. They then enter the chapel. The signs of death and the smell of decay are unnerving but Bo-bi’s eyes are immediately drawn to a fancy longbow hanging on the wall and he resolves to ‘recover’ it. Tibor thinks that stealing stuff from the house of the Immortals is probably a bad idea and says so. The others say nothing but try to figure out what happened here. It seems obvious that someone was wounded or killed and then dragged from one end of the chapel to the other. I wonder how there is any sign left of the blood, considering the tropical environment and the time that has elapsed from the killing til now, but am told not to think too much about it. The PCs find the priesthole pretty quickly and the poltergeist emerges and frightens everyone away. This has the happy benefit of stopping Bo-bi from stealing the pretty longbow on the wall. Outside the gang recover their wits and wonder what they should do. Tibor says he wants to try something and goes back inside.

Inside he sits down in the middle of the room and places a piece of chalk in front of him and waits. When the poltergeist starts acting up again, Tibor masks his fear and says “O restless spirit of the unjustly slain [Tibor made some assumptions], I wish to talk. If you cannot speak, please write,” and gestures to the chalk. The poltergeist takes him up on this offer thanks to Tibor being able to use his Constitution modifier in place of his Charisma modifier once per day, and a brief conversation follows where Tibor politely asks the name of the haunt, who killed him, which Immortal’s he paid homage to, and if he will allow Tibor to bury him. The haunt, Silas, answers and Tibor moves to the corpse. Trying not to think about the smell and the liquids pouring down his arms, Tibor wraps Silas’ remains in his blanket, takes him outside and buries him with the fancy bow. Not knowing much of anything of Silas’ patron Zirchev aside from name and basic interests, Tibor prays to Zirchev and asks Him to grant His follower the peace of death currently denied. After this he performs the traditional tortle death dance since he has no idea what sort of rituals Zirchev’s clerics practice and figures something is better than nothing. Once this is done the dirt of the grave starts moving as something pushes its way out. A brief moment of panic at the thought that Silas’ body may have become undead as well as his spirit passes through the PCs, but what emerges is actually the bow. Tibor assumes this means Zirchev accepts the death rites, and he takes the bow and promises to pass the bow on to another worshipper of Zirchev. Then he goes down to the beach to wash off the rotten corpse juices all over him. The PCs then investigate a couple more places until they find some fairly fresh tracks of something heavy being rolled from one house to a farmhouse on the outskirts of ‘town’. Sylvia easily follows the trail, puzzling at the strange footprints left by the being rolling the presumed barrel. The PCs enter the house at the end of the trail and force their way through the warped entry door, causing it to creak loudly. Inside they find hints that something has been here fairly recently and Sylvia spots something hiding in a corner outside and calls to the other PCs. Tibor gets there first and is attacked by a drunk choker, who quickly chokes out the hapless tortle. The other PCs fell it quickly and Sylvia and Vår set about healing the poor reptile. During their investigation they find a plum tree, which had me wondering how they grew in a tropical environment. I was told not to worry my pretty little head about that. Near the base of the tree the PCs found a Clue - a brief missive hinting at power struggles in the little colony. We dutifully note down all names.

Once this is done Sylvia sits down to make some more potions while Vår and Bo-bi want to explore some more. Careful comments about splitting the party from the DM fall on deaf ears. Tibor elects to stay with Sylvia in case something comes upon her. Sylvia protests that such caution is unnecessary but Tibor does not pay any attention to her. Vår and Bo-bi check out the strange-looking fields. By lucky dice rolls the bloody maize does nothing to them and they handle it fairly easily. Then they go to the dire molehills and find out they were actually ankheg hills. Being a veteran of Baldur’s Gate that’s what I feared but hoped it was dire moles. The good news was they were tiny ankehgs and Vår, Aidu and Bo-bi manage to survive and run away and we end the session there.

"The Return of Robin Hood" also ties into the Shakespeare episode of nuWho. On the whole, a decent enough core story dragged down to disappointment by unnecessary ties to nuWho stuff, some dropped plot points, and the inexplicable presence of potatoes in 12/13th century England.

I then read Voices by leGuin, one of the Annals of the Western Shore. I am reading these in the wrong order but it does not seem to matter much. AS you might expect, it was good. I have the first of the series, "Gifts", sitting in the To Read pile.

Currently reading Dragonshadow by Barbara Hambly, the second Winterlands book. I really liked the first and bought the rest not long ago. Dragonshadow is good so far.

"Carson of Venus" was typical ERB: pulpy fun, though it gets a bit same-y after a while.

Currently reading The Return of Robin Hood by Paul Magrs, a 4th Doctor novel with Sarah and Harry as companions, immediately preceding "The Loch Ness Monster". It's also a sequel to the Capaldi-era Robin Hood story.

Watched it yesterdayu and thought it was OK. I loved the retro-aesthetics and thought it did it better than Loki. I liked the flashbacks of previous heroings.
Silver Surfer and Galactus were...fine. Overall the movie was better than anything Marvel has done since Shang-chi.

I also read Their Kingdom Come, the third and final volume of the Night Eaters by Marjorie Liu and Takeda Sana, the creators of the magnificent story Monstress. Highly recommended.

"Bury your gays" was good, though not quite so good as "Camp Damascus". It spent a little more time developing the story and characters, which was good, but there were a number of basic plot questions I felt were a bit shaky. Overall a good read, and enough to keep me coming back to Tingle should he release more mainstream literature.

Currently reading ERB's Carson of Venus. It's the first Carson book I've read and I made the mistake of thinking it was the first in the series when I picked it up at the used book store. They had just got in a bunch of ERB, more than I felt I could justify picking up in one go, so I grabbed a few Tarzan books, a few John Carter books, and this thinking it was the first in the series.
Oh well, so far it seems pretty standard ERB fare so I doubt I'm missing much other than details.

I've never heard of that one. I'll have to track it down.

If they make a third movie in this series I demand it be called "Godzilla Minus Zero/No limit".

I think that's the first time I've seen a spambot give relevant and correct information in a thread.

To beat a joke to death, I was tenderized and left to marinate underwater so no salt would have stayed on me.

One of my favortie types of LeGuin stories is the one where she goes full anthropologist, and this collection had its fair share of those.

Coming up, Chuck Tingle's Bury your gays. I never thought I'd find myself buying his stuff, much less liking it and buying more. I don't think I'll ever try 'classic' Tingle but I love that it exists.

My game which has been on hold since February will be on hold a little longer. GM burnout was worse than I thought.

In better news, with WanG wrapped up my wife will run Ruins of Azlant, transposed to Mystara so I can play a teenage mutant ninja tortle.

In even better news, my original gang met again for the first time this year and started a new campaign which is an interim game of the last one now that two members are on parental leave. First session was on Friday and it was a lovely time. Lots of laughs and wonderful swingy 1st level fights: half an hour of everything missing, me being grappled by a giant leech and reduced to negatives by another PC in attempt to help me, spider poison requiring the better part of a week to recover from.

"Annihilation" was interesting, much better than the movie, though in fairness the book is hard to translate to film. The wife has the rest of the series so I will be getting around to the rest of the novels eventually.

Currently reading Le Guin's A fisherman of the inland sea, a collection of short stories. Some I've read before, some not, and I remember little of those I have previously read. See my earlier post about how I should not buy any new books.

I need hardly say it's a good collection, considering the author.

I consider the 'within one step' more of a guideline than a rule. Part of it is natural selection, so to speak. People who are of vastly different moral and ethical inclination than a particular god will probably not gravitate towards their service in the first place. Also, a god will prefer servants who align more closely with them, so even if a mortal thinks they would be a good fit it's still up to the god to accept them.

I'm also a fan of the employer-employee take on divine servitude. As direct servant of a god a cleric has a job to do and certain set of standards to uphold. As long as they can do this many gods will not particularly care what a cleric's actual alignment is. You might be required to act a certain way that is not your innate inclination, but if you want a bit of the power and authority of a god that's part of the deal.

What I did when my players met Xanderghul in my very much not canon adaptation of ReotR was have the illusions in his demesne be so strong and so thick that True Seeing was worse than useless, giving the visual equivalent of being in a blinding technicolor snowstorm.

I should never buy new books for precisely this reason. I could jsut reread everything I have for the rest of my life and probably be content. Doesn't stop me buying new stuff, though.

Not yet.

More Spy Family, more Ranma 1/2, and surprisingly, more Tales of Wedding Rings. A good season on this alone

OK so first one to really catch my attention this season is "May I ask one final Thing".

The wife and I are tried it on your recommendation and are enjoying it. There's something so pleasing about seeing unpleasant people getting punched in the face.

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

Work today, and it seems like it will be very quiet. I fear I will be forced to look for a new job soon.

Because you don't want to work there anymore, or because you'll be getting laid off or something similar?

The latter.

Construction is in a slump in Norway right now, and since I work at the most expensive supply store...

"I whip out my PENIS*; does that help?"

*Piezo-Electric Necron Interference Shard
For context, we were playing WanG (Wrath and Glory, a WH40k game) and we encountered Necrons. Previously I had gotten a device which was supposed to mess them up in some way. We spent quite some time trying to find a name for the decive that would be puerile enough for us.

So you have a bunch of gamers ages 35 to nearly sixty giggling like children at the continual references to my PENIS.

Work today, and it seems like it will be very quiet. I fear I will be forced to look for a new job soon.

A trip to my parent's house tomorrow to check the mail, water plants etc. while they are at the family cabin, then game night.