Charles Evans 25's page

Toying with the idea of renting the house to college kids if other plans work out since we're about 20 minutes from the campus. Minimal fixing up needed compared to actual sale...

Is there a reputable agency you can get to do the paperwork and legal hassle stuff for you in exchange for commission? I have a relative with an inherited property, who has a good agency rent it for her, and all she has to do (apart from income tax paperwork) is an annual visit, approve/pay for repairs and occasionally rubber stamp something else.

Couldn't find a more recent thread so posting to this one. Recently tracked down a copy of the 95 minutes DVD.
First hour or so was great, but the end section felt to me rushed.
I'd have liked more setup of Egg Shen beyond the opening and that scene with the tour bus - although I get that some of the point is that Jack is being dropped into an increasingly crazy situation with no clue what's going on, but still we had some scenes without Jack in - and I'm not quite sure on why Lo Pan decided to run away from the fight in the courtyard, when Egg Shen apparently isn't a problem for Lo Pan.
But I was getting tired at that point, and maybe I missed something.
Loved the bit towards the end where Jack goes 'job done', says goodbye to Wang, and just heads off - I came across some online reviews which says that was supposed to be cowboy film inspired.
Generally, I got the sense that Jack and Wang were genuine long-term buddies - good acting and directing there.
And it must have looked spectacular on a cinema screen, even given the limited budget.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

I gather from your post that Rovagug's immunity has been discussed in a thread before though. Do you have a link, please, to the thread in question?

Still have to find the blog post commenting on this series being the “safe from death” notices, but the entries can be found here.

and the Which Core Deity will we lose? thread.

Thanks for the link. 700+ posts, I see.

I'm running short on posting time here, but thanks again for the link.

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

I gather from your post that Rovagug's immunity has been discussed in a thread before though. Do you have a link, please, to the thread in question?

Still have to find the blog post commenting on this series being the “safe from death” notices, but the entries can be found here.

Sorry about the delay in response. We just had a General Election here in the UK.

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

It belatedly occurs to me that logically Rovagug should be on the 'defunct deities' list, before the final deity body-count is in.

Did you follow along the countdown where they revealed the 10 safe dieties on the paizo blog? They laid out the prophesied scenario that would occur if that deity did shuffle off the immortal coil, and many of those were not good (including Rovagug.)

Specifically a lot of the reasons that gods were working together, despite being probable enemies, was that "we can all agree that Rovagug is a problem that we all need to work together to fix." If you remove the reasons that Heaven and Hell are not at war, then that war is going to start right quick and probably not go well for anyone.

I've been away for a while, and didn't know that Rovagug was on a list with special immunity.

I gather from your post that Rovagug's immunity has been discussed in a thread before though. Do you have a link, please, to the thread in question?

"If it bleeds, we can kill it."

"No, if it bleeds, it can be killed. Nothing says we can kill it."

A god being killed does not mean all gods can be killed. Otherwise Rovagug would have been on notice since Aroden.

Aroden was an amped-up human, and the details have been left mysterious. It may have been that Aroden expired because he forgot to take his annual dose of Starstone mineral water, or something.

It belatedly occurs to me that logically Rovagug should be on the 'defunct deities' list, before the final deity body-count is in.
Even with the edition change, as far as I can understand Rovagug was still so universally hated and feared that there was still a major team-up of deities of Avistan and Garund to lock him away.
And if something has recently changed in the setting so that any deity can be killed... well Rovagug is going to get some vigilante justice in his centre of the world prison cell, once it's clear that that's possible.
Although there may be some squabbling over which deity gets to finish him off.

And at some point in the future, if a Rovagug is around in the Starfinder setting, someone else can presumably pick up the evil hockey-mask (in best Friday the 13th fashion) and put it on and become Rovagug II.

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

Besmara (CE) - may be well positioned to hoover up Gorum worshippers and clergy with a interest in naval warfare, being a pirate goddess.

{. . .}

Nice analysis, except that Besmara is officially (and inexplicably) Chaotic Neutral.

But the bigger point is that Alignment is about to suffer Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure . . . .

Dang. I don't know how that happened unless I compound Besmara somehow with Asmodeus in the list in the line above. Still, I should have picked it up in the read through but maybe something in my head went 'pirates=evil' and overrode visual input.

(At any rate, that would presumably position Besmara even better, at least if the alignment thingies still existed, to hoover up Gorum's faithful of a naval combat orientated bent.)

Ed was a consultant during the initial work on Kingmaker; he produced several monsters and most notably came up with the idea of the Stag Lord in the first adventure, but he hasn't been involved in more recent Pathfinder content.

If it reminds you of some stuff that happened in Forgotten Realms, that's just an indication of just how influential the Forgotten Realms are, I guess, but I feel like the War of Immortals story line (which has yet to really be out there for folks to take part in) is VERY different than the Avatar crisis.

It's the accounts department, isn't it? They won't stand for an expenses claim for taking Ed out to lunch for some long reminiscences? :D

You were talking in the thread for a few Blog Posts back about how there weren't any schools for 'writing adventures', and I had a ding, lightbulb, moment of 'well there aren't schools but there are old writers', but, ack...

Stag-Lord, huh? Now I'm trying to figure if I saw any other bandit work he did (discounting Zhentarim as a much bigger organization)... my initial thought was 'Raiders of Galath's Roost' but I just google searched and that was Skip Williams. Must go and dig out my old Dungeon collection and check the last print copy - I think you printed some handy indexes in there...

Thanks for the replies. :)

The version of Achaekek we published in that early volume was before the Pathfinder RPG existed; it was a 3.5 version of Achaekek that was relying upon the OGL rules present in 3.5 products like Epic Level Handbook.

In 1st edition Pathfinder we adopted a different stance; full deities don't get stat blocks. Achaekek wouldn't have one so the 3.5 version was outdated to be a curiosity that we wouldn't be using going forward. You can use those stats as stats for him or for an avatar or whatever you want, but in modern Remastered 2nd edition pathfinder Achaekek doesn't have a stat block at all.

As for what's going on with him killing Gorum... we explain things more in "Prey for Death."

This is starting to remind me of a lot of things which have happened in the Forgotten Realms setting.

On the Achaekek vs Gorum debate, the Achaekek bestiary entry on pages 80-81 of 'Escape from Old Korvosa' had this to say:

...Yet the gods did not wish to create a creature capable of being used against them, and thus created the Mantis God with the fundamental inability to act against the gods themselves - it can only slay those of demigod status or lower...

...and just as He Who Walks in Blood cannot kill a God, so have the Red Mantis adopted a tradition to their ways...

These are quotes from a game rules stat-block. The original version of Achaekek in the campaign setting couldn't have killed Gorum, or not unless Gorum dropped to demigod status or lower first.

Edition change reboots of the setting may have 'retgonned' this and written a new and different version of Achaekek though. (Edit: As indeed from some of the more recent posts on this thread, it looks like they may have done... Hey, ho....)

Edit:
Ah, Pathfinder #9, there's a trip down memory lane. I had forgotten the undead skeletal elephants... :D

You're missing the big one. Szuriel, the Rider of War, the Angel of Desolation...

Back in 1st edition Pathfinder, the 'four horsemen' were all NE aligned, which would not meet my search criteria of either be CN or within 1 step of CN.

It's not irrelevant, it's an interesting read.

And no, the Gravelands are Tar Baphon's new playground after he destroys Lastwall. Very much a mortal affair, but if you're a warrior who's just lost a god, going off to fight the undead and carrying a charm of Pharasma seems like a reasonable possible outcome.

I thought the Carrion Crown adventure path ensured Tar Baphon stayed buried?

This is getting a bit off-topic of Gorum, however (unless Tar Baphon killed him to take his stuff) so I'll leave off there. :|

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

NB Yes, there are other war-deities around such as Iomedae (LG). I have not considered deities such as Iomedae, since it seems to me that their alignments are too far out of step with Gorum's (CN) to pick up any more than a fraction of the clergy

What's alignment?

TBH while they're generally far apart, Gorum's emphasis on somewhat honorable combat seems like something Iomedae could work with, at least with some followers who are willing to allow themselves to be pointed at specific targets.

I could also see Pharasma benefiting very indirectly, not because of any portfolio match-up, but because one of the best places to 'fight the good fight' right now is the Gravelands. I could see displaced Gorumites wandering over there and potentially affiliating with the world's first and foremost anti-undead deity.

<shrug>

Consequences of Gorum snuffing it:
Okay, there are going to be a lot of worshippers and clerics looking around for a new divine patron I figure, assuming some pre-existing deity doesn't covertly grant spells, etc, to anyone praying to Gorum.
Going down the list of deities in the front-cover of my old edition 'Gods and Magic', covering the ones either CN or within one alignment step:

Besmara (CE) - may be well positioned to hoover up Gorum worshippers and clergy with a interest in naval warfare, being a pirate goddess.

Brigh (N) - minor deity, described actually as Gorum's 'counterpart'. I'm reading 'counterpart' in this instance as being along the lines of 'opposite', so I'm having trouble seeing Brigh as compatible with Gorum worshippers ad clergy.

Calistria (CN) - I could see Calistria as maybe going so far as to patronise people interested in feuds and vendettas; possibly could step up as some kind of elven goddess of war, but I'm not sure that would interest her.

Cayden Cailean (CG) - I don't see Cayden being generally interested in war - well not beyond tavern brawling. Some 'adventurers' might convert from Gorum to Cayden, I guess, but I'm not sure Cayden himself or his church would go looking to push for conversions.

Dahak (CE) - 'scalefolk' deity, so probably species limited in terms of worshippers, but might pick up any 'scalefolk' who for whatever reason had previously worshipped Gorum.

Desna (CG) - without some serious motivation, I have difficulty imagining Desna wanting to turn herself into a war goddess or patron of war.

Fandarra (N) - giant deity, triple aspect. Might, in her 'vengeance' aspect have some appeal for giants who previously worshipped Gorum.

Findeladlara (CG) - exclusively elven deity, interested in traditions and art. I have trouble seeing Findeladlara being interested in picking up any elves looking for a war deity.

Ghlaunder (CE) - deity of diseases and parasites I have difficulty seeing as having appeal for former Gorum worshippers.

Gozreh (N) - duel aspect nature deity. Not a deity I can see being compatible with many former Gorumites.

Groetus (CN) - Gods and Magic shows Groetus' pre-existing followers as more interested in after-battle clear-up (dispatching the wounded) than actual battles, so I have trouble seeing this religion expand to take in a lot of people looking for a war patron.

Gyronna (CE) - female exclusive priesthood deity. I get the impression Gyronna is a bit too focused in the direction of covert and subtle activity for this church to be looking to pick up any Gorumites whose inclinations didn't already run this way.

Haggakal (CE) - ogre deity. I could maybe see ogres previously attached to Gorum converting to one of their own deities whose domains include 'strength'.

Hanspur (CN) - 'waterways guardian'. My impression is Hanspur is too much of a 'nature deity' to be interested in going looking for Gorumites.

Ketephys (CG) - elven 'woods & hunting' deity. Might have some appeal for elven rangers and other soldiers previously associated with Gorum.

Lamashtu (CE) - special case. Will cover below.

Milani (CG) - deity of uprisings. May have some appeal as a substitute for Gorum for those fighting in uprisings.

Naderi (N) - deity of suicides. I have some trouble seeing Naderi as a substitute for Gorum for any except those seeking their own death in battle.

Nethys (N) - dual aspect deity of magic. May have some appeal for those specifically interested in the use of magic for protection and/or destruction in war/battle.

Nivi Rhombodazzle (N) - gnome deity. A deity concerned with underground exploration and discovery, I have trouble seeing Nivi as a substitute for Gorum.

Pharasma (N) - deity of fate and afterlife. Unless Gorum's demise has in some way compromised 'what was meant to be' in some way which Pharasma sees as requiring her intervention to 'right', I see Pharasma as too detached to go looking for former Gorum worshippers. If Gorum's demise is some kind of gigantic cosmic blunder, I could maybe see Pharasma covertly granting spells to at least the CN and N clergy, in Gorum's stead.

Rovagug (CE) - deity of destruction. I could definitely see some former Gorumites who enjoyed the destructive aspects of war switching to Rovagug.

Sivanah (N) - illusion specific deity. Probably incompatible with the interests of former Gorumites, outside of corner-cases like battlefield illusionists.

Thamir Gixx (CE) - furtive halfling deity. Might conceivably be involved in Gorum's demise, but I doubt the deity is interested in picking up the worshippers.

Thremyr (CE) - deity of giants with an interest in hoards. Seems to me likely to be incompatible with most former Gorumites.

Urazra (CE) - deity of giants with an interest in raiding. Might be compatible with some giants who formerly were Gorumites.

Ydersius (CE) - defunct 'scalefolk' deity, at least as of the time of 'Gods and Magic'. Listed as having a potential future ambition (if revived) of leading followers to 'attack the surface' so might be in the market as a patron at least for 'scalefolk' who previously followed Gorum.

Zogmugot (CE) - some kind of goblin hoard deity. Not an obvious fit for me with many former Gorumites.

*******

Nocticula (CN) - I gather that since 'Gods and Magic' came out, this former demon lord has ascended (both in terms of alignment and of status) to become a CN patron of the arts and those seeking redemption. I'm not sure the identified interests would square with Nocticula going out of her way to acquire many former Gorumites in the normal way of things.

*******

LAMASHTU (CE) - note the capital letters, to emphasise this consideration. To my mind, Lamashtu is in prime position to benefit from Gorum's demise. Lamashtu has previous experience of hoovering up the portfolio and worshippers of a defunct deity (Curchanus, whose demise she was personally responsible for), and already has what comes across to me as a 'war against civilization' thing going for her. Someone up-thread mentioned Gorum as being a deity of nomadic barbarian tribes; I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Lamashtu benefit heavily in terms of conversions of former Gorumites, at least amongst CN and CE aligned followers. Depending on the exact circumstances of Gorum's demise and how deities function, she might be able to simply outright expand her influence to become a war goddess, too, or to find some underling or progeny to set up as a war deity.
I doubt the daemons would be too happy to see Lamashtu as a replacement war-deity for Gorum, and the irony of that happening, were the daemons responsible for Gorum's demise (one possibility floated up-thread) would be delicious.

*******

NB Yes, there are other war-deities around such as Iomedae (LG). I have not considered deities such as Iomedae, since it seems to me that their alignments are too far out of step with Gorum's (CN) to pick up any more than a fraction of the clergy, if the 'cleric must be within one alignment step of deity' thing still holds (I may assume incorrectly here that it does), and grabbing existing Gorumite clergy is going to be really useful in terms of bringing their congregations with them. Although I guess deities of trickery such as Asmodeus (LE) might bestir themselves to grant spells and powers to clerics completely removed from their own alignment if it suited their agenda.

*******

Apologies for points where I am somewhat out of date. And I have no idea of what pre-determined plans may have already been established by Paizo, in terms of consequences of Gorum's demise, being somewhat out of contact ad relevance ever since the end of the 'Ask James Jacobs' nights in the old Paizo chatroom.
I hope, nevertheless, that this post is of some use to someone somewhere.

Somewhere in the Forgotten Realms another suit of armour war-deity, Tempus, is maybe shaking his head over what happened to this upstart youngster from Golarion.

Hmm. Just re-read the blog and noticed the bit about standalones going hardcover. Will be interesting from the point of view of those with dead-tree versions whether that ends up being a net-positive/neutral/net-loss.

SheepishEidolon wrote:

To be fair, published adventures have other benefits, too. They save you from writer's block, and they help you to provide your players with something innovative, something you wouldn't have come up yourself.

To me, one of the greatest benefits published adventures gave me was education. By reading and studying published adventures from a wide range of games and rules over the decades, I bolstered and improved my own ability to write adventures, in the same way a great writer can become a better writer by reading a lot. And now that I'm in the position of being a professional adventure writer and developer, I feel that it's important to pay it forward to the next few generations of adventure writers by both creating adventures that are inspiring and challenging and present new ways to do things but also to help give out advice in places like this.

Until "RPG Adventure Writing" becomes a widely supported area of study in college courses (which, admittedly, is much more of a thing today than it was when I was in college back in the early 90s), published adventures are the closest things folks can get to textbooks for those who want to become professional adventure writers themselves (also admittedly not the most financially rewarding profession one could go into, so keep that in mind!).

From an amateur DM point of view I personally found the second edition AD&D Van Richten's Guide series useful, too, in that they got me thinking about what an investigation/monster hunt adventure could look like and how NPC villains and monsters might think. I think there were four spinoff 'Children of the Night' compilations of mini-adventures too, each themed for one of the 'Guides', trying to explore the range of things you could actually *do* with, say, a golem/'The Created' adventure.

I think TSR occasionally experimented with three-parter adventures. I recall there being something mindflayer themed in 2nd edition AD&D. (edit: TSR's mindflayer trilogy might have collectively been fan-named something like 'The Illithiad'.)

Oh smurf.
Just caught up with this news, two weeks late.
My condolences to the family of the PostMonster General.
Ironically I just had trouble logging in to give these condolences, which is something I would have been looking to report to him, in case there was something going on on da webz of interest to him connected to it.

Tensor already mentioned the thread 'The Loaf Question', which is where I got a glimpse of the PMG dealing with matters pertaining directly to his own domain. That thread left me with the impression the PMG was an epic prankster or a genius - or maybe both.

I didn't know the PMG personally - only through occasional contact on these boards (or, I guess, though my memory is not what it was, in the old Paizo Chatroom run by Lilith Demon Queen of Victuals). From what contact I did have with him, I figure the PMG will be missed by a lot more people and with greater depth than most. He was one of the good guys.

Okay, that's that, and I hope the random smurf generator throws up an appropriate avatar to accompany this post.

Edit:
Hmm. Well I suppose it depends how you view it on the smurf which has come up...

Two one up to the Australian men by now; the Australian women have all but clinched their series now - only a slight hope of a tie for the England women.

Posting for self-search purposes: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic thread.

But the England wicket keeper is there to score runs, not to keep wicket, in the new Stokes 'positive batting' order of things! :D

Edit:
Anyway, on to the next test...

Another Ashes series, another England match loss...
Not sure if Stokes (now England men's captain) is either over-confident-arrogant or is corrupt, but that declaration on day 1 by him instead of grinding out as many runs as possible just handed Australia the win on day 5.
An Australia win despite rain.

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

James Jacobs:

Have you come across Julian Simpson's modernisation (for radio broadcast) of the Charles Dexter Ward story?
The basis is that a pair of amateur investigators are researching/looking into the disappearance of Charles Dexter Ward from a locked room in an asylum for an 'unsolved mysteries' podcast show, the last person he saw being his doctor, Doctor Willett.
It recasts Joseph Curwen as a cult leader who was believed killed during an FBI siege in the early 1980's, and plays around a bit with what's going on, but there's a lot of the original Lovecraft in the story, and familiar name-checks.

Not sure if it's accessible outside the UK, but the BBC has a site for the episodes (and for a subsequent rewrite/modernisation of The Whisperer in Darkness here: *Link*

(I came across it in the past couple of weeks, since the BBC have been re-running the episodes of the Charles Dexter Ward story on Radio 4.)

I've never listened to it; thanks for the heads-up!

I've caught up with the end of the Charles Dexter Ward piece now, and I didn't find the last thirty or forty minutes or so as satisfying as what went before - it finished up a bit too much 'secret conspiracies' for my liking - but the rest seemed to me to be fairly solid where they were going for the mystery and people-out-of-their-depth-discovering-&-encountering-the-supernatural angles.

James Jacobs:
Have you come across Julian Simpson's modernisation (for radio broadcast) of the Charles Dexter Ward story?
The basis is that a pair of amateur investigators are researching/looking into the disappearance of Charles Dexter Ward from a locked room in an asylum for an 'unsolved mysteries' podcast show, the last person he saw being his doctor, Doctor Willett.
It recasts Joseph Curwen as a cult leader who was believed killed during an FBI siege in the early 1980's, and plays around a bit with what's going on, but there's a lot of the original Lovecraft in the story, and familiar name-checks.

Not sure if it's accessible outside the UK, but the BBC has a site for the episodes (and for a subsequent rewrite/modernisation of The Whisperer in Darkness here: *Link*

(I came across it in the past couple of weeks, since the BBC have been re-running the episodes of the Charles Dexter Ward story on Radio 4.)

James Jacobs:
If a paladin is tricked by a third party into marrying a succubus, and the succubus is (due to the bindings of the marriage oaths) unable to intentionally directly harm the paladin, what is the most paladin-y thing to your mind which the paladin can do in the situation?

Edit:
To be clear, this isn't a gaming situation, with players involved. I'm asking purely out of interest as to your view from a story-telling perspective.

Further Edit:
The succubus is assumed to be 'innocent' of setting the situation up, too. It's entirely on the third party that the paladin is in the situation.

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

With a lot of people stuck at home on government advice/under government lockdown, now might be a good time for a Paizo RPGSuperstar contest?

In fact, they are!

RPG Superstar

Get your designs ready!

Glurk. Non-paizo website.

With a lot of people stuck at home on government advice/under government lockdown, now might be a good time for a Paizo RPGSuperstar contest?

And with the assistance of what the BBC website is currently calling 'possibly the worst-ever drop in Test Cricket' Root's team has managed not to win the last test, and thereby have lost the series.
Root quoted afterwards as saying he is proud of the way '...England learned lessons quickly...' and that he feels like '...we're a more rounded team for being out here...'

Come back, The 8th Dwarf! Your comments about the squads the EWCB seems to be sending out to play the men's test format are more than justified! :)

Well: they managed to replace Cook with Root as test captain, thereby beginning the process of wrecking Root's batting - and the team Root led lost to Australia 0-4, down under, anyway, and then could only manage to scrape a drawn series at home in England, earlier this year (2019).
And Root's team has just been absolutely thrashed by a good New Zealand team, losing a test in New Zealand a short while before this post by an innings.

Can we have Root's team removed from the test rankings, please, and give someone else like Afghanistan the place and a chance please? Root's lot are worse than the teams Atherton and Stewart led to defeats in the 1990's.

14/06/19:
Disney Magic Kingdoms now uninstalled.
For the record, the advert was for a rapper called 'Travis Scott', who is apparently on tour at the moment, and who Gameloft and Disney would like to wave an advert like that in your face to let you know about.

If it had been an advert like that in a product aimed specifically at an older audience, I would have simply ignored it, as part and parcel of the price of interacting with something like that, but I consider there to be something very wrong with a product and at least the branch of the companies responsible for it showing something like that in a product where at least some of those interacting will be young players.

I am reviewing my interaction with other Gameloft products.

14/06/19:
For God's sake, keep impressionable children away from this product (Disney Magic Kingdoms). Four times now, in the past twenty four hours or so, I've had an advert which I did not opt to see, in game, thrust upon me shortly after loading which prominently featured a skeleton (and not a comic or humorous version of one.) I suspect it would be sufficient to give some impressionable children nightmares.

I'm not a big fan of Disney either, though I wasn't aware of some of the reasons you listed above until reading them now. The sheer cost of visiting Disney parks is insane. I have a family member who works for Disney, so I paid nothing to get into the parks in Florida, and I still dropped somewhere between four and five grand for a 7 day vacation there.

And they don't sell those bottles that you pay 15 dollars for, and can fill at any time you want throughout other amusement parks. I was shelling out 20 bucks for water bottles and Gatorade every 2 hours on a 97 degree Farenheit day at the Magic Kingdom to avoid anyone passing out from heat stroke, dehydration or exhaustion...

Disney are apparently working in partnership with a software (?) company called 'Gameloft' on this one (Disney Magic Kingdoms) so it's possible that some of what is taking place at the moment is on the software company - although at the very least Disney are apparently either nodding along or are so careless of their brand and IP that they allowed themselves be tied up in some sort of legal contract that means they have no control over what's taking place in Disney Magic Kingdoms.

My nieces went to the European Disney park near Paris last year (or maybe the year before?) and apparently enjoyed it - though I didn't hear on the adult side of things just how much it cost in financial terms. They went at about Easter, so I don't think the climate was too much of a problem, though.

Anyway, what is probably the last in-game information update from me for the foreseeable future on the 'entertainment product', Disney Magic Kingdoms:
I finally completed a long enough calendar streak to see an Amber Chest item today. For the record (and since information on this chest seems to be scant on the wiki the last time I checked), this particular 'Amber Chest' contained one happiness token, some regular magical currency and a random concession (in this case a Hot Dog Stand.)
I don't know how representative that is of the content of Amber Chests, but it at least gives anyone venturing into this particular 'entertainment product' a data point of what one of these contained, at the time and date of this post.
The concession would be useful if I had long-term designs on continuing to interact with this product, since ALL concessions have at the moment disappeared from the in-game shop (along with all decorations) - presumably because the long-time players were able to spend in-game currency to buy and boil them down to make Merlin's Elixir too easily.

For the record, they switched around what makes the 'refresh' tokens, so the Reflections of China attraction is basically not helping there on that count in the current (at the time and date of this post) Maleficent Tower event.
Oh well…

24th May 2019:
At this point I advise other people to stay away from Disney Magic Kingdoms unless they have money to spend. The developers appear to me to be trying to introduce a stealth subscription model, in terms of a daily gemstone tax, which is likely to outstrip the natural legal gemstone income available in-product on a daily basis.

To expand on this further, one of the basic gameplay and thematic features of the game is the 'happiness meter'; keep the guests happy by granting randomly highlighted ones time with characters, or by what seems to me to amount to shunting them to the front of queues for rides and you earn happiness. As well as providing a possible warm feeling of satisfaction/achievement to a product user (I have a theme park, and my visitors are ecstatic!), happiness activates four ascending levels of bonuses, with in between 0% and 100% attained, and get 100% on one level, and you start again from 0% to fill up the next level.
The happier your park is, the more likely characters and so forth are to find rarer tokens for recruiting and levelling characters up.
Happiness decays however, and needs topping up; previously, the rate was about 4% or so, (at least in my experience) per hour. Gameloft have just changed that to 14% or so per hour.
Go to bed to sleep or go out to work for the day and wake up or return to find a previous 99% ecstatic rating completely wiped out, and dropped to the previous level. And whilst you desperately scramble around trying to keep guests happy to build it back up, it's still falling back all the time.
Of course you can shortcut that by spending gemstones to raise happiness levels... except we're possibly talking about double digit gemstone totals needing top be spent there.
Or you can use Merlin elixirs to lock happiness in place - except it's a good day if I manufacture more than 100 of those and the 'lock happiness for 24 hours' option costs 350, and since you can't buy Merlin elixirs directly (at the moment) from Gameloft, but instead (if you want to raise your production rate) have to buy chests to get decorations and concessions to liquidate (and possibly to find the magical currency to liquidate them) if you want to hand over real world currency to Gameloft to try and keep happiness up, it's probably cheaper to buy a mountain of gemstones from Gameloft and simply raise happiness directly.

At the time of this post the Disney Magic Kingdoms Facebook page is full of posts by people complaining, some people are trying to organise a concerted effort to put as many '1 star' reviews of Disney Magic Kingdoms as possible around, and the Maleficent Tower event Gameloft are running seems to me to be about the number four thing being talked about on the Disney Magic Kingdoms Facebook page, numbers one, two and three being the happiness meter update. (For the record, the meter also, prior to the update, boosted magical currency income and experience stars earned, but these boosts have been stripped out completely, as of the time of this post.)

Gameloft also potentially augmented the size of the public relations disaster they have brewing, by not making use of the in-product news bulletin feature which Disney Magic Kingdoms have, to give notice of this change. (Or at least if a news bulletin was sent out, it never reached my copy of Disney Magic Kingdoms.) This change came as a surprise to a lot of people.

Instead of worrying about the Maleficent Tower event, and whether I will have enough land to put the attractions re-released with it, I am winding down my activities and pondering whether to stop playing for a while in the hope of an eventual reversal of this modification, or just to uninstall the product altogether?
I don't have any problem with companies running games where extra (optional 'luxury') content must be paid for with real-world currency. I don't have any problem with companies charging a subscription for access, if they're up front and honest about what they're doing. I do find it intensely frustrating where companies pretend a product is 'free' but then handicap participants on basic level daily activities unless money is paid. (At least where the company itself provides the primary or only challenge/antagonist.)

Levelling Merryweather (the premium character fairy from the Sleeping Beauty collection) up is starting to look a chore; the Merryweather ears tokens aren't automatic acquisitions on missions - I think they may be 'rare' category tokens, and there are only three missions which have a chance to acquire them - each coming in at 6 hours long, and one of the missions requiring two characters.

In slightly better news, Merryweather does at least have a very short mission (only 60 minutes) which has Aurora's crown tokens on the 'opportunity to acquire' list, which was one of my main reasons for interest in Merryweather in the first place. I now have Aurora unlocked, and Merryweather scooting around looking for those aforementioned Aurora crown tokens. (The Aurora crown tokens seem to be at least 'epic' category drops, meaning if your luck isn't in and you don't want to burn gemstones or real world currency to short-cut past the need for them, lots of missions are needed to find them.)

Also, Emperor Zurg (from the Toy Story universe) is now being recruited. (He takes 24 hours to bring fully on board, but the Aurora tokens are taking so long to pick up, I might as well get Emperor Zurg recruited now...)

Moana Event:
Well: the event finished a few days ago, and by the end I had the characters Sina, Chief Tui, Pua, and Maui. (Since I don't know the film, these are mostly just names to me.) I built the three regularly available attractions, and bought (for 50 gemstones) the event float - the latter mostly as an experiment.
I think the float may have helped ensure that event currency was never short, but I'm not sure how much it speeded up recruiting or levelling up characters; it certainly wasn't preconfigured to provide any tokens specific to Pua!
Now that the event has concluded Pua looks like he/she will continues to be a nuisance, since to level him/her up, I need pig tapestry tokens (amongst other things) - and the only source for these which I now have available is one of Sina's six hour missions.
I'm satisfied with the characters I did get, and what progress I did finally make, but I think I would be considerably less so if I had gone off the deep end buying the event-specific premium characters and attractions, in an attempt to 'complete' the event storyline and get all the available content. By the look of posts elsewhere on the web, even those who obtained those items still fell short of completing the event in multiple cases.

Other stuff:
Two Sleeping Beauty fairies now recruited, and the last one incoming in the next ten minutes, to complete the trio!
The next event should be a Maleficent Tower; I am starting to level up characters to try to knock Maleficent off her perch in that.
Mickey/Goofy/Woody/Prince Charming/Cinderella now all at level ten (maximum level currently available.)
I was also lucky enough to get a 'Reflections of China' attraction in my most recent platinum chest - in the last Maleficent Tower event, this attraction was one which made 'refresh' tokens, which will be potentially very useful if it provides them again in the next Maleficent Tower.

This might not be my very last post on Paizo.com, but I think the end is near.

** spoiler omitted **...

[friendly humour/teasing, meant in all the best ways]

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

On a serious note, if you don't like the feel of a website any longer - or simply don't have time for an activity anymore because other things are more important - then you have to go.
Maybe some day you'll be back.

All the best for the future (and especially on the employment hunting front!), regardless of other things! :)

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

James Jacobs:

Did Rob Kuntz ever indicate to you what happened to Elluvia Maure? The Chambers of Antiquities (Dungeon #124) which I was recently re-reading seems to me to indicate that she met some kind of sticky end, but what that end was doesn't seem to be specified.
(The Greater Halls (Dungeon #139) mentions a BIG fight between Afelbain's legion of undead and the demonic invasion force Elluvia arranged (the demons apparently lost), but doesn't seem to say if Elluvia was a casualty of that battle...)

He didn't; Rob's a fan of leaving mysteries in there for GMs to do with what they will.

Hmm. I did a bit of digging after posting and found this thread, which has hints about some Maure Castle related material, but (I don't think) anything about what happened to Elluvia.

Oh well...

James Jacobs:
Did Rob Kuntz ever indicate to you what happened to Elluvia Maure? The Chambers of Antiquities (Dungeon #124) which I was recently re-reading seems to me to indicate that she met some kind of sticky end, but what that end was doesn't seem to be specified.
(The Greater Halls (Dungeon #139) mentions a BIG fight between Afelbain's legion of undead and the demonic invasion force Elluvia arranged (the demons apparently lost), but doesn't seem to say if Elluvia was a casualty of that battle...)

Moana Event:
This event is looking increasingly a complete washout for anyone without a minimum of 400 gems to spend as an entry 'fee' to the event (to purchase the first premium character, the float, and the premium attraction, as soon as they unlocked) or dollars available to buy the equivalent 'bundles'.
There are simply too many tokens to collect to make headway in too little time without these things.
As an example, one of the Moana event storyline quests is 'collect 30 kakamora spears'; without the premium attraction, the minimum mission time to have a chance to collect 1 spear is six hours. Throw in the premium attraction though, and Sina has a mission to collect spears available which takes four hours instead of her regular one of twelve and the third non-premium character in the set, Pua, (if you actually somehow have Pua unlocked and recruited) only takes two hours to look for a spear instead of six.

I don't know if I will complete Pua recruitment; I finally knocked off enough of the annoying coconuts with spears wandering around the map to make the rest go away (for now) and to have a theoretical chance (i.e. the Pua character is actually unlocked now), but there are less than two weeks left of the event at this point, and some of the tokens needed to recruit Pua are both rare and four or six hour minimum missions to have a chance to find one. I think it's probably possible to recruit Pua, but progress much further than that in the event (again: 30 spears needed, with minimum mission time of 6 hours without the premium location) is looking iffy.

In better news, on the main storyline front, I have Flynn recruited, Rapunzel coming into view (i.e. about to unlock) for recruitment, and nearly enough gems to pick up Merryweather when I get that far. (Merryweather is unfortunately looking rather unavoidable a premium character when it comes to trying to handle some of the more demanding in terms of epic/legendary tokens Sleeping Beauty characters; the most urgent need for Davy Jones is some distance further off right now, and so with regret I have bumped him down the priority queue.)

Moana Event:
Well, 24 hours of Moana Event gone, and the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves chest did not contain a Snow White character, but instead the common attraction from the Snow White set (the Seven Dwarves' Cottage), which may save me a couple of hundred currency as a purchase in a future Maleficent Tower event, but doesn't do much otherwise for me at the moment.
Meanwhile, I am completely hamstrung in the Moana Event by the fact that I need 'Sina Hat' tokens, but Goofy (who is the only character with a chance to collect them, by carrying out his tuba-playing mission) keeps turning up other tokens instead.
It's like the start of the Princess & the Frog event, where I simply could not get pincushion tokens necessary to recruit/level up Eudora - and my previous experience from that event is once you get behind at the start, you never get a chance to 'catch up' lost time later unless spending hundreds of dollars is possible.
I need two Sina Hat tokens right now to advance the Moana storyline anywhere; that's going to be a day or more to get those (Goofy tuba playing mission takes four hours, and with family events, etc, over Easter I can't exactly login to Disney Magic Kingdoms every four hours right now to run six or even five of those a day) with time ticking away on the event all the time.

I decided not to throw gemstones at the event, and have increased my parade size to five, and acquired Aurora's Spinning Wheel (which latter will help with recruiting the Rapunzel characters now starting to appear in the main storyline.)
At this point I've basically written off the Moana event as a secondary concern at best for the next 25 days or so; yes, it would be nice to get the characters, but without a Snow White character to support, and with the ridiculously low chances of getting Sina Hats at the moment, getting even halfway through the non-premium characters and attractions is looking dubious right now.

NB:
If I had gambled 200 gemstones on the first Moana premium character, it's conceivable that that character might have had a 'collect Sina Hat tokens' mission accessible at some level. My reasoning, however, is absent a Snow White character to run event currency missions (and event character token acquiring) in and of itself the first premium character would probably not have got me anywhere near finishing the event storyline (and acquiring regular event character number five) which would have started to really get back the gemstone costs sunk into its purchase. I have a very tight gemstone budget, and in the circumstances, spending on the premium character is not sufficiently high in terms of recovery of gemstone costs to merit the purchase, or at least not in my analysis.

Pre-Moana event analysis:
At this point (with less than 24 hours to go) my feeling is the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves character set has NINE characters in it, and that the Moana event is likely to have an expectation that a LOT of event currency and tokens are supposed to come from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves characters - great if you have them, too bad if you don't.
I do NOT have thousands of dollars to throw at chests to try and collect Snow White and the Seven Dwarves characters from scratch and get them to whatever levels the Moana event considers necessary for token finding; I suspect the only other option for participants to complete the event will cost at minimum 700 gemstones (based on Princess and the Frog premium purchase prices) necessary to buy two premium Moana characters, one premium Moana attraction, and one Moana parade float. And at best that's going to get a relatively 'immediate' return of maybe 70 or so gemstones for completing character groups and levelling up Moana characters within a reasonable time-frame. (With a few more gemstones to come for levelling up over time.)
I currently have two hundred and something gemstones. And even if I had seven hundred, I'd really have to be a Moana fan to want to eat a net cost of 630 gemstones total for completing the event.

At this point, I think my strategy needs to be to see what the Snow White chest available 24 hours after the event starts on the calendar has in it, and if it's not a character, forget about the Moana event entirely, apart from picking up the first two Moana characters (who are the ones, as I understand it, most likely to matter for Maleficent Tower events.) Absent at least one Snow White character, I need to prioritise parade size (since parades actually might generate gemstones, and are a reusable source) and Davy Jones. (I now have Minnie Mouse unlocked and recruited and guess which character I need to obtain fabric for some of her costumes... That's right - Davy Jones.)
I may need to pick up Aurora's Spinning Wheel (premium: 65 gemstones) at some point to help Sleeping Beauty character recruitment too if/when they unlock.

I'm not sure what I do if there is an actual Snow White character in the chest, but I'm reasonably certain it will be something like a concession or decoration (the highest percentage likelihood contents for such a chest.)

Summary:
My feeling is I should wait until 24 hours after the event starts to see what's in the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves chest, and then spend gemstones on other stuff, unless it's a character in the chest, and forget about Moana event except the first two Moana characters.
Oh: and Davy Jones is looking more and more essential a premium buy.

Since a 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' chest has appeared on my in-game calendar, for a couple of days' time from now, it looks like the 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' characters will support in the next big event (Moana) and said event will commence then.
Needless to say I have absolutely no Snow White characters or attractions at all, and will not have by then (unless I get one in the calendar giveaway chest at the event start.)
Looks like I will have time to push Prince Charming to level 9 before then though. (I have the tokens; I just need a 16 hour gap where I won't need to recruit or welcome anyone else... :D )

Fortunately the number of event-specific tokens you could accumulate in the Honey Bees event turned out to be capped, so after picking up two dippers and two honeycombs, my characters lost interest in finding any more and got on with locating more useful stuff.
My characters swatted a grand total of 0 bees in the course of the five day event. (I could have used the accumulated tokens to swat one bee, but then my characters on some missions would have started looking for more all over again, potentially instead of stuff actually useful for recruitment/levelling up.)

For the record, when the Maleficent Tower event concluded before the honey bee event, I had about 6,500 MT event currency unspent - which converted into two gemstones. I'm not clear on what the exact conversion rate is for unspent currency in a MT event, but it seems to be worse than for event currency from events such as 'The Princess and the Frog'. (Princess and the Frog was 2,000 event currency equals one gemstone.)

At the moment another 'big' event (equivalent to 'The Princess and the Frog') is being trailed, with a 'Moana' character set and attractions. I'm not sure what I'll do. After picking up the Pluto Easter costume (actually available at the moment because it's Easter, and necessary for sending Pluto to search for fabric for some other costumes) for 60 gems, I'm currently down to 218 gems. I'm debating whether to get the opening premium Moana character once that event starts (likely to be 200 gemstones), waiting for the premium attraction instead halfway through the event (likely to be 150 gemstones) or just forgetting it and increasing parade size (and thus gemstone income; I did actually get a 'Bambi' float in a treasure chest a couple of days ago, which would be useless for token generation right now (no access to Bambi characters unlocked) but still have a chance of making gemstones, except I need to open another parade slot up to run it).

EDIT:
Update - Got a 'Fantasia Gardens and Fairways' attraction in a platinum chest, which would have been more useful a month ago, but which should at least help to see Cinderella the rest of the way to level 10 (Cinderella currently level 9) on the Cinderella hat tokens count.

AAAAARGH!
Some sort of 'Honey Bees' event has just started and is going to carry on for the next 4 days and 23 hours.
Annoying bee graphics hover over parts of the area you control, and instead of giving actually useful tokens, for levelling characters you control up, some activities may now give away tokens which will make (if you collect enough) one bee graphic go away temporarily.
If you collect an eye-watering number of tokens, you might score enough points from getting rid of bees to actually pick up something useful (14 points required for a legendary chest; 23 points for a special attraction, plus leaderboard prizes for top scorers). Unfortunately, though, your chances of getting that many points look to be zero unless you spend a pile of money (although you're probably better off just spending the money if you have it on getting something useful directly) or you have most/all of the characters and attractions which were released in the 'Winnie the Pooh' limited time event (which was twelve months ago.)
So basically five days for participants who got all the Winnie the Pooh stuff last year to have a really good time with it, and five days of annoyance for everyone else.

Update:
150K land was cleared in the end; I have also since that got the storyline far enough forward to clear another land plot, but have just about run up into an immovable wall of force at this point, a far as the main storyline goes. A character who needs 8 item tokens of 'epic' rarity to recruit seems to be blocking the storyline ()i.e. no further progress until he is recruited), with quests/missions to have a chance of finding said tokens coming in at 8 hours to complete and by no means certain (epic rarity, after all) to pick up such a token.
The early going I described in the first post on this thread as 'tough but fair'; ever since Monsters Inc. characters started turning up in the storyline, it's become increasingly a grinder. Pay Gameloft real world money or watch days or weeks go past without advancing the main storyline further.

With regard to the current Maleficent Tower event (now with only a couple of days left to run), it looks to be basically mainly for players who have everything of everything, as I suspected it would be. On the 'first' stage (supposed to be the easiest) I got something like 12,000 of the 26,000 points required to clear the stage. I've picked up fewer than that out of bigger target totals in subsequent stages, because I've had fewer and fewer of the necessary characters needed to score points.
I've basically been stuck with the 'consolation prize' - for people who have neither been playing from the start nor spent thousands of dollars on the product - of three 'common' rarity characters from previous limited edition sets, and three matching attractions; still that's six legendary chests (minimum) I'd have had to bought, during the right offers (with in-game currency or real world currency) to get them otherwise.
For those looking for helpful information, each stage of the Maleficent Tower has had a different treasure chest type associated with it.
Stage 1 - 'Magical Chest'
Stage 2 - 'Radiant Chest'
Stage 3 - 'Ruby Chest'

Sadly the Ruby Chest doesn't contain a chance of getting actual gems; it seems that each chest contains a chance of acquiring decorations and/or concessions associated with the 'Dumbo' character set, and a chance of acquiring event currency and a chance of getting character tokens. In the case of each chest type, the available character token pool seemed to be related to the characters you own capable of taking part in that stage of the Maleficent Tower event, and to represent 'rare' or less common tokens. So in the current stage (stage 3) I have the characters Mickey Mouse/Cinderella/Beast available capable of scoring points and event currency in the Maleficient Tower and the Ruby Chests give me a chance of getting (randomly selected) tokens needed to level those characters up (although unfortunately not a chance of getting Cinderella's glass slippers which are an epic rarity token.)

Anyway: at this point I'm waiting to see what the next limited time event is, and stockpiling what gems I can acquire for possible premium character purchase, if I decide to make a push for the characters in that event. Otherwise, I intend to expand my parade size, acquire probably a Monsters Inc. or Pirates of the Caribbean float, and start saving up for Davy Jones.

Update;
'Maleficent Tower' limited time event being advertised as starting in a couple of days' time; by the look of it, from facebook and the wiki, it's great if you have every character ever available, at maximum level and nothing else to do with them; not so good for participants otherwise.
I think I'm going to try and ignore it as much as possible, and concentrate on raising the regular magical currency to clear the next available land plot (price tag: 150K, since the storyline to get at cheaper land is blocked by several characters it looks at the moment like it may take a week each to recruit.)

Well: I don't know how long there is left before the promised increase to 'level up costs' arrives, but Cinderella is now level 7.
I also have Mike Wazowski recruited, and the first Monsters Inc. attraction ('The Laughter Floor') building. (On that latter count something really weird has happened, which I think is a bug, since about 75% of all guests with specific 'wants' for attractions arriving seem to want to see that one, and I have a swarm of six or seven of them now all creepily hanging around and circling The Laughter Floor as it builds, waiting for it to complete - I actually noticed something like this happen a few days earlier with the Tortuga tavern, as well.)

Anyway: I think that that's probably it for excitement worth reporting here for now. If anyone has any questions, post away, but otherwise I think that may be it from me here on this thread, until the level up costs rise hits, or maybe a limited time event starts.

All the best to everyone!

Crisis situation!
A news update landed in my in-game news thingummy, which brought to my attention that at some time soon Gameloft will be 'adjusting the levelling up costs of several characters upwards' or words to that effect.
The characters included include a couple of sets I'm nowhere near access to (Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast) and the Cinderella set (which I do have characters from.)
I have no information on when the update is going to 'hit' but I am frantically trying to level my recruited Cinderella characters before it arrives, and the levelling costs subsequently get much more exorbitant for them.
I have successfully levelled the Fairy Godmother to 5 (up one level), Prince Charming is currently levelling to 7 (up one level) and I am frantically looking for glass slippers to try and get Cinderella to 7 (which will be up one level if I pull it off) before the update arrives.
My current guess, based on factors such as the start of the 'calendar' day in-game is that I have about twelve hours (in which case I'm out of luck on the Cinderella front) or one day and twelve hours (in which case I might just make it as far as getting Cinderella to 7 goes) left.

In other news Buzz Lightyear has now gone to level 5, and I have that last Mike Wazowski token I needed, but recruiting Mike Wazowski has got pushed down my own priorities queue by the game update situation. (There's only the one queue for levelling and recruiting characters, and I need it for Cinderella character levelling at the moment, plus my magical currency budget for that too...)

NB
I'm guessing that the inclusion of the 'Beauty and the Beast' characters in the levelling up amendments of the incoming update may hint at a possible removal of them from their current 'limited time event' status, and their introduction into the main story as regularly available characters (if enough missions/quests have been cleared to unlock/access them.)