| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
We're gonna need a bigger hedge.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This weekend was good. The week has only gone downhill. I really hope something can be done about it, but I have a new normal to deal with.
I hope things smooth out for you soon!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fantasy Monster: Pyredancer
Good grief. That's macabre. I wish it were October so I could throw this thing at my group for Halloween.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
QotD:
"I have to work faster before my dystopian future novel becomes historical fiction!"
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Goddamn it, can't write fast enough.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just rebrand it as "future history".
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
IIRC that's why Sir PTerry kept writing fantasy. It wasn't going to be immediately invalidated.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I read an interview with Ray Bradbury once where he said he didn't write science fiction (except Farenheit 451), he wrote myth with science fiction imagery. I like that.
I usually stick to fantasy, but this new project grabbed me in mid-2018 and I've been working on it since. The funniest part of the process was where an agent rejected it in January 2020 on the grounds that it was totally unrealistic that "no way would the government ever just shut down and quarantine all of Manhattan."
*face palm*
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just rebrand it as "future history".
Or if I change a few of the street names and have people refer to "President John Wayne in the 60s" then I can claim it's an alternate timeline!
Alternate timelines: Justifying fictional obsolescence since... well, whenever in your timeline they were invented.
I read an interview with Ray Bradbury once where he said he didn't write science fiction (except Farenheit 451), he wrote myth with science fiction imagery. I like that.
I usually stick to fantasy, but this new project grabbed me in mid-2018 and I've been working on it since. The funniest part of the process was where an agent rejected it in January 2020 on the grounds that it was totally unrealistic that "no way would the government ever just shut down and quarantine all of Manhattan."
*face palm*
That agent probably missed thousands (I might be exaggerating, a bit) of zombie/infection/alien invasion books, movies, and games where it does happen.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I used to wonder how the exact same stories kept getting published over and over. A couple dozen interactions like that one and I’m starting to develop a theory…
*sarcastic chinstroke*
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
How’s everybody doing? Me, I’m hot. Damn hot.
HelpHelpHelpHelp!
Ok, my group is gathering this weekend for the first time since February 6th. I've been working on a game based on notes I made for what would have been the follow-up adventure to that one. But I've hit a snag. The answer is probably ridiculously simple but right now I'm ridiculously simple and I'm having a tough time coming up with a "realistic" resolution.
In short, a plague hit the players' home city of Dar-Shalul (I promise I didn't tie it into the real life plague going on) but was using an adventure idea that our very own Mark Hoover posted once called "The Hidden Malediction" (hit this guy up for adventure hooks. You will not be disappointed). So anyway, the plague is still ongoing and even the clerics and lay healers are dying so the situation is becoming extremely dire.
The person doing most of the disease-spreading is a young man who is actually an Anti-Paladin, using his Plague Bringer ability to pass the sickness along wherever he goes. But my dilemma is this; let's say they catch the guy, along with anyone else he's in league with, how do I put a stop to the plague? Do I let it run its course and eventually go away or how could I affect a sort of mass cure for the affliction?
All suggestions are welcome.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Could have it be curse based (especially if it takes out the Clerics), take out the Anti-paladin, reverse the ritual he's using to empower the plague so it backfires and alleviates itself.
This is where I've been leaning, to be sure. I just didn't know if it was worth exploring more, but I think I will now. Thanks!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What if it turns out that the cure to the plague is the Antipaladin accepting an atonement spell? Only in order to get him to atone, they have to figure out why he turned into such a disease-spreading asshat to begin with. And then fix that issue, possibly with a few long-term Diplomacy efforts to redeem him.
And if they kill him before finding this out, so much the better. Now they have to go to Hell (or the Abyss or a Costco parking lot on a Saturday afternoon right before a hurricane) to convince his soul to accept return to his mortal form, and THEN figure out who shot his dog and stole his car (I assume all antipaladins are set off by John Wick-style shenanigans).
Knowing why he's doing it (other than just being a dick) might help figure out the plot to undo it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
One of possible options - he was using some sort of serum to protect himself (or his minions) from the disease and once he is defeated, the players can synthetize more of it to cure the population.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
*cackle*
Everyone knows the only sure cure for plague is blackstrap molasses and devilwort, brewed for a fortnight under the waning moon and delivered the old-fashioned way. Let me get my tube and squeeze-bag...
*cackle*
The antipaladin is the patsy - and actually innocent - but willing to play into it in order to further their reputation. Relatively new antipaladin who doesn't actually have the power to pull off a plague.
The person really behind it decides to end the plague due to whatever the heroes did hoping to end the disease (first option doesn't work, getting the atonement does or something like that).
The budding antipaladin has been dealt with, but the real monster is still out there...
The antipaladin is the patsy - and actually innocent - but willing to play into it in order to further their reputation. Relatively new antipaladin who doesn't actually have the power to pull off a plague.
The person really behind it decides to end the plague due to whatever the heroes did hoping to end the disease (first option doesn't work, getting the atonement does or something like that).
The budding antipaladin has been dealt with, but the real monster is still out there...
All of the ideas offered are terrific and I'm likely going to be able to use elements of them. This one though is very much like one I thought of around 4 am this morning. I dug around the Bestiaries and found the Sepsidaemon. It's only a CR 7 critter (my players are all in that same range) but it's a pretty nasty one. Though their alignments differ a bit I think stretching things a bit might work to have them in league with one another, or maybe even the daemon being the one in charge.
Thanks, everyone!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So... it's a Sepsi challenge?
HiYO!
I'll show myself out.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
One of my favorite things about the Olympics is regaling people with stories about my past Olympic performances and seeing how long it takes them to figure out I’m talking about Summer Games on the Commodore 64….
Love it!
Has anyone heard or read about Sandy Petersen's Twitter comments regarding trans-folks and even German homeschooling? He's not doing himself any favors, I'm afraid. Evidently, Critical Role is really speaking out against him, too.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh blimey.
Oh blimey.
Yeah. That sums it up nicely.
Fantasy Monster: Cubush
Very nice!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fantasy Monster: Planetnik. A traditional Slavic entity that I planned to write for a long long time.
It is raining at the moment.
Fantasy Monster: Planetnik. A traditional Slavic entity that I planned to write for a long long time.
It is raining at the moment.
Have him send some rain and cooler weather this direction.
I love it when creatures from folklore are given gaming statistics. Sometimes when going through a new Monster Manual or Bestiary I'd be sort of irritated that they just "made up" more monsters than relying on things that already "existed", though Kobold Press' "Midgard Bestiary" did a pretty good job at working in some creatures from old folklore.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey Cal - you post about music all the time and I was wondering:
Have you ever made a TTRPG character based on a song?
The first character I ever rolled up as my own was an Anti-Paladin named Schwartz the Lawless (this was before that damned Mel Brooks movie about schwartzes came out). I was really into a band called W.A.S.P. at the time whose singer was named Blackie Lawless and Schwartz is a variant spelling of the word "black" in German. The cover of their second album, "The Last Command" was the inspiration for him.
I've based more adventures on songs than characters. I built a multi-session adventure using songs from Ronnie James Dio's collection from his days in Blackmore's Rainbow and as a solo artist. The old man NPC who the players were aiding as the central part of the arc was based on him. His name was Niji, which is the Japanese word for "rainbow" and was also the name of his music production company. The core of the adventure was based on the song "Sacred Heart" with bits and pieces from other songs by him sprinkled in.
If you're familiar with the band Manowar, their first album has a song called "The Dark Avenger", about a man who has everything taken from him and then left to die by the village elders. He comes back as a vengeful undead riding a nightmare and I am definitely going to use that character as the BBEG in an upcoming adventure. My first DM back in 1985 wrote an adventure based on it and I've been tinkering with something for it a long time.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rain roars behind the window all the day...
It's a constant buzz similar to what waterfalls sound like.
At least the air is cool.
Rain roars behind the window all the day...
It's a constant buzz similar to what waterfalls sound like.
At least the air is cool.
Up until the third week of July and since it's been largely rain-less here. We had a pretty rainy spring and early summer, slightly more so than usual. We could actually use a steady shower for an hour or two. The trouble with that is here in the south as soon as the sun came back out the humidity would rise to almost unbearable levels.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The big issue is that the rains we are getting within the last week or so, should have been spread over the late Spring and early Summer instead.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
*cackle*
Aye! Tis the end of days, as the old rhyme foretells:
When spring rains in high summer come
and the plague-wagoner beats his drum,
when monkey rises in suit of red
kiss your ass goodbye, we're all dead...
*cackle*
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fantasy Monster: Dire Shrimp. When you need cocktail party ingredients to fight back.
Fantasy Monster: Dire Shrimp. When you need cocktail party ingredients to fight back.
I can completely see a foot-long peacock mantis shrimp hitting some poor soul with the force of being struck by a .50 caliber bullet or punching its way out of a cooking pot...lol The "regular" ones can strike and then prepare for a second strike 50 times faster than we can blink our eyes.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds like horrible prawnishment!
I’ll show myself out.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sounds like horrible prawnishment!
I’ll show myself out.
You've not lobster sense of humor!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've been a bit crabby lately though...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In other news, I see that the Peloponnesian Peninsula is dealing with the worst wildfires in their history. All their efforts to hose things down just make it worse. They need to wise up—everybody knows you don’t pour water on a Greece fire!
I'll show myself out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do these puns really serve a porpoise?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
They're just for fin. I suppose I could scale back, if I'm gillted into it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I wish you whale.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My "big" Christmas gift from last year arrived yesterday. The wait was because it was a pre-order with a later release date so I was forced to be patient. It was supposed to be released in June, so I was starting to get a little nervous...lol
It's the deluxe edition hardback graphic novel telling the story of the image on the cover of the first solo album by Ronnie James Dio, "Holy Diver". The album is a vinyl picture disk with a remastered mix of the songs it contains. I've mentioned before how important Dio's music was (and still is) to me and I love this so bad.
It was worth the wait.