Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 March 2002 - Sunday
I swear, I just looked at the tome, and then it was two
hours later and I had shadowy fragments of unwholesome knowledge
seething in the bottom of my mind!
After this incident of mythos-related time slippage, I had to scurry
quickly to get my grocery shopping done before heading over to the
garden (well, backyard) party for Chrisberday (observed). Chrisber was
picked on, yummy food bits and tea bits were consumed, the weather was
admired, and a replica of the first edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica was presented. Overall, casualties were light.
Make a comment!
30 March 2002 - Saturday
Every time I tried to go to sleep, the NOC called to tell me that
Babelfish sucks. Since I already knew this, I couldn't really do anything
except automate what they were doing to nurse it along, but that took up
enough time that I became a very lazy parasite this morning. I did,
however, get up and become functional in time to go see FotR with
Marith. We saw the Two Towers trailer! There were many orcs! And
Wormtongue and many of the characters I don't remember at all and Eowyn and
some other chick who might be Arwen but we're not sure! And an ent! And if
any of this is a spoiler, sheesh!
Then we lay around my parasitelair reading until we felt hungry enough
to go to Chef Chu's and eat pot stickers and Mandarin beef sticks and Hong
Kong style crispy panfried noodles and sautéed prawns with snow
peas! Yummy! I think the staff thought I had a date, instead of my sister,
but oh well. I guess that means the blazing neon sign flashing "LOSER ...
LOSER ... LOSER"1 on my forehead doesn't
show up well under indoor lighting.
1: Admire my restraint in not using an actual <blink>
tag.
My fortune cookie says:
You will have gold pieces by the bushel.
I must save it for AQoJ!
Make a comment!
29 March 2002 - Friday
Yesterday I said I was sleepy, but really I was just bored and
lethargic.
Today, I am sleepy.
Also bored and lethargic, but mostly sleepy.
* * *
But at least I have written a bit of AotBS!
Make a comment!
28 March 2002 - Thursday
Sleepy parasite.
Accomplishments today:
- Picked seven of the 100? comics I'm
currently subscribed to unsubscribe to.
- Bonded with my group (squad?) over pretty good Mexican food
- That work thing (in moderation)
- Walked very quickly to Whisman Station anime and then very quickly
back home again
Nazca's timeslot has been taken over by Those Who Hunt
Elves, a series which really makes no sense whatsoever. But it has a
tank!
tanks! by kitlings (Fri Mar 29 20:56:33 2002)
Tanks are good! o.o
Kitlings in tanks by Trip (Sat Mar 30 23:11:09 2002)
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
in tanks! by kitlings (Mon Apr 1 11:58:24 2002)
beam
Make a comment!
27 March 2002 - Wednesday
My shoulder still hurts. Unfair! Hopefully TBG and comics will
distract me.
But Flit is a bigger freak than I am! See!
See!
* * *
Cool, I managed to avoid a meeting by doing real work. And as expected,
very little information was conveyed in the meeting (according to later
reports).
* * *
My shoulder hurts a little less. And I have blithered some more.
* * *
Yay, comics! Lots of comics!
* * *
Boo, oncall! Lots of oncall!
I had to bother my boss, and tried but failed to bother another cow
orker, but finally I learned the Very Simple Trick to make it all okay, and
went back to bed.
Make a comment!
26 March 2002 - Tuesday
My shoulder hurts. I think I slept on it wrong or something, but it
is getting more hurty as the day goes on, not less. This makes me very
sad.
* * *
Useless parasite.
owie! by keeeeet (Wed Mar 27 09:43:37 2002)
Trips shouldn't hurt themselves! I say so!
Re: owie! by Trip (Wed Mar 27 09:46:34 2002)
I certainly didn't mean to!
Make a comment!
25 March 2002 - Monday
I think the reaction between the allegedly mouth-acid-neutralizing
mint and the acid from Diet Dr Pepper produced lye or something. Ow.
But I have reached a solution to the problem of AotBS lumps! Check
out the Age of the Black Sun blog! Now I can just
put pointers here when I make new entries there.
Make a comment!
24 March 2002 - Sunday
Still some lethargy, but I made it to 11:00 brunch without begging a
ride, which is about an eight-hour improvement over yesterday. Go
me.
In Sovereign Powers, my character got to investigate strange
events related to one of his special effects, but then made a grievous
tactical mistake in attempting to close the trap on the villains who
object to red hair-like sensillae growing on trees, people, or really
just about anything, and got kidnapped for "decontamination". Hopefully
his friends will rescue him before he gets skinned alive or worse.
Then I watched more Outlaw Star. I am saddened that the
catgirl is not becoming any cooler. Sniff.
Make a comment!
23 March 2002 - Saturday
You thought I was lethargic and useless last weekend? Hah!
Today I didn't get up until 17:00! Admittedly, two late nights in a row
meant I could use some extra sleep, but this seems just slightly
excessive. :(
* * *
Today's dilemma: what to do with the big chunks of Age of the Black
Sun text that plop themselves into the middle of my daily entries. The
problem I perceive is that since I put them in at the point in the day
when I think of them, they may obscure later parts of the entry. It
would be very sad if the AotBS lump kept people from reading about the
Parasiteday party last night!
I could leave things as they are because no one is ever put off by
the AotBS stuff, or always move the AotBS stuff to the end of the entry,
or implement something like the LJ-cut feature, or just put all the
AotBS stuff on a different page or set of pages and put in regular links,
or explode into millions of parasitefragments. Or something else
entirely.
* * *
Oh oh oh! That is the other thing I must write! Marith has been
printed in the latest Strangers in Paradise! It's the last
letter, the one signed "Dennis" (because she opened with "Dear Mr
Moore"; don't look at me, I don't understand either). Yay Marith!
* * *
TV watched tonight: 2 episodes of Angel, 1 of Buffy.
No spoilers, but wow, extra doom!
journals by gconnor (Sun Mar 24 15:14:16 2002)
You might consider adding new material at the top of the day instead of at the bottom, since the most recent day is on top, but the day itself currently runs from top to bottom. But rearranging the day would only make sense if you have time stamps, like Faerie does or LJ does. This helps if readers check in mid-day and then come back later and might not see easily where the "new" material is.
I like reading the aotbs material, it's cool. Something like the cut feature would help in cases where readers want to hear some things and not others, but I'm the type to click on the details links all the time anyway.
AoTBS by Carl (Sun Mar 24 20:53:55 2002)
An advantage to putting all the AotBS material on its on page and linking to it
is that then its all conveniently located together. It matters not to me where
you put it, since I'll read it anywhere. I will read it in a box. I will read it with a fox. I will read it here, or there, I will read it anywhere!
Supply your own additional verses, as required.
Make a comment!
22 March 2002 - Friday
As might be expected, given last night's entry, I am quite sleepy.
Maybe Blake will be knocked out early in the first fight or
something.
* * *
<AotBS>
Character creation is still hard, so I'll leave it on the table and
instead make up a city!
Scattered across the region are a number of "ward circles", circular
walls of hard charcoal-grey stone, of unknown antiquity. Ward circles come
in four1 sizes: a full league in diameter,
1/3 league (1000 yards), 1/9 league, and 1/27 league. The wall is 1/10 the circle's radius in height,
1/10 that thick, and not
perfectly vertical, but slightly bowed outward at the midpoint: a slice
from the equator of a sphere, rather than a simple cylinder. In the exact
center of the circle is a "ward engine", a construction of the same stone
in a complex shape like a three-dimensional glyph a yard or two in each
direction.
1: One three-league circle is known, but it is broken
or incomplete, uninhabited, and probably haunted.
What distinguishes a ward circle from any of the other bits of ancient
cyclopean architecture littering Gea is the invisible barrier that blocks
passage across the surface of the sphere defined by the outer face of the
wall. Only someone with an implanted key can get through or take other
people or objects through.
The largest ward circles almost always appear in isolation, and the
smaller ones in pairs or trios at most, except for one grouping of three
one-league circles and four
1/3-league ones and a few
smaller ones, in which some enterprising Geans have built a city.
Living in a city based on ward circles makes keys rather important to
the residents. The pertinent facts about keys are:
- Each key is specific to a circle, and no one can have more than two
- Getting a key requires access to the ward engine and a living person
already keyed to that circle
- Someone with a key can, given time, let an unlimited number of
people into or out of the circle
For obvious reasons, only persons of high standing or good repute are
legitimately given keys to even one circle apiece, and stringent
precautions are taken to prevent keys being obtained without official
approval. This works every bit as well as one would expect.
It may be possible to break through the barrier or forge a key, but
no one has admitted to or displayed such knowledge.
The three large circles contain rows of troughs filled with water and
alchemical elixirs, in which grow five sorts of plants edible in almost every
part and found nowhere else. Since the elixirs are not nearly as healthy
for Geans as for plants, the farms are worked by convicts and slaves.
Although cultivated at much less than their maximum yield, the three
agricultural circles feed their nine thousand farmers and the fifty
thousand citizens in the residential circles, and produce plenty of food
for export as well.
Of the four 1/3-league
residential circles, one contains two 1/9-leage circles, which are the
citadels of the nobility and the civil service, and another seven 1/27-league circles, which are the
temples of the major faiths/philosophies. Most of the temples are
whitewashed or painted domes supported by the sphere of the wards, but the
citadels have everything safely inside the wards.
The five 1/27-league
circles scattered around the line of three and the clump of four are
used as barracks/armories/forts.
The other ward circles, scattered as they are over the tall-grassed
prairies, are used as forts, fortified villages, caravansaries, and the
like. Most roads go from one ward circle to another, so that travellers can
spend as many nights as possible safe from the gruagachs and other hazards
of the wild. Because these safe refuges are available, patrols of the
countryside are not as vigorous as they could be, which makes the refuges
even more important, and so on. Travellers should consider themselves
warned.
</AotBS>
* * *
More Neon Genesis Evangelion today! Still in stuff I've
seen, alas.
* * *
<TBG>
Yay! Two prophets have agreed to help me uncurse my artifact, and the
one that doesn't like me and doesn't answer his mail is unnecessary
because I got enough favor from an adventure! Yay me!
</TBG>
* * *
More Parasiteday loot! Adam got me Life's Devices, an
improving book on biology! I can enlarge my brain!
* * *
Eeep! No Knights of Atlantis for me!
Instead, there was a surprise Parasiteday party! With hugs and edamame
and mushrooms and sea bugs and SURPRISE SMUG FRIENDS! And sugar-free cake
and parasite-decorated TBG-joke cake and hugs and more loot!
I got a new hat, which is brown and has a small feather in the band,
from Chrisber and Christy! And an architectural drawing of a building in
Rome from Rebecca! And a Psychic Octopus and a Disco Moose from Angie! And
a photo album of the adventures my stuffed animals had while visting with
Ayse's stuffed animals (about which I shall have to write more later) from
Ayse and Marith and Christy! And we watched the Unfortunate Fish Video and
the Tomato Zombie Video from Ayse's collection of Chinese Top 20 tapes, and
The Curse of Fatal Death, which stars Rowan Atkinson, some other
guy, yet another guy, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley as Doctors 10-14. Need
I say more?
After much searching for the lost art of conversation, I finally crept
home, beneath the brilliant flashes of cloud-to-cloud lightning or alien
bombardment or something, and discovered that the problem with my new hat
is that its stylishly dished brim accumulates rain. Well, serves me right
for not taking an umbrella!
But hurray for Christy and Chrisber and Marith and Ayse and Jim and
Angie and Rebecca and Harold and Al and Dave! I have the best
friends ever!
Doctor Who? by tamago (Sat Mar 23 23:14:13 2002)
"...Rowan Atkinson, some other guy, yet another guy, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley as Doctors 10-14."
For those of you playing along at home, "some other guy" was Richard E. Grant and "yet another guy" was Jim Broadbent. Trip also forgot to mention Jonathan Pryce as The Master. Bloody brilliant, that was. grin
Just a parasite! by Trip (Sun Mar 24 18:38:31 2002)
I told you I had already digested my own brain! Anyway,
remembering the names of four out of six actors is much better than I
usually do.
But yes, the Master was great! Even in the actor interviews in the
"Making of" segment!
Make a comment!
21 March 2002 - Thursday
It's Parasiteday! Give me your brains!
* * *
Now that we have stopped using the obnoxious beta version of the JDK,
frontend software releases are no longer a hell of manually restarting
jillions of machines. Yay!
Also, my brain has been enlarged by a one-hour presentation on how
queries work and how we attempt to determine how pages should be ranked.
It's pretty cool, but I can't tell you. Neener neener.
* * *
The problem with Whisman Station Anime is that it runs 'til almost
23, and then there is almost an hour of walking home, which together are
almost entirely unlike going to bed at 22:00.
On the other hand, there was anime! We finished Nazca which
sadly continued to feel like six episodes of plot and characterization
stretched to fill twelve. I continue to enjoy Martian Successor
Nadesico despite Chris Siebenmann's bad reviews, and Sorcerer
Hunters and Bubblegum Crisis are still very much what they
are.
Next week, Those Who Hunt Elves!
brains by tamago (Thu Mar 21 10:46:28 2002)
Sure. Here you go. Wasn't using it anyway.
Re: brains by Trip (Thu Mar 21 10:53:43 2002)
Thanks! I've never gotten anything quite like it before!
parasiteday! by mony (Thu Mar 21 14:58:03 2002)
Happy Parasiteday!
You can have my brain, too! by Liralen (Thu Mar 21 17:55:53 2002)
It's just pretty stuffed with fatigue poisons at the moment, and my stupid review thingy got stretched another week, so it would be a fine favor to me if you did take it and eat it up, yum!
Happy Tripday!! Happy Tripday!
Parasiteday! by Silkie (Thu Mar 21 18:28:41 2002)
Happy Parasiteday! And many happy returns!
Day by gconnor (Thu Mar 21 21:10:10 2002)
Yes, Happy Day!
Happy Parasiteday! by Lynx (Thu Mar 21 21:52:52 2002)
Here, have some of my co-workers' brains, I'm sure they're not using them! ('gryn)
Thanks! by Trip (Fri Mar 22 08:41:55 2002)
Yum, brains! But Liralen doesn't have to give me her brain, because she gave me the first DVD of Escaflowne! Which arrived right on my birthday, because Liralen is Just That Cool!
Hoorah!! by Liralen (Fri Mar 22 12:24:49 2002)
Yay! I'm Just That Cooool!
Such cool luck. I'm glad it arrived!! Hoorah! Trip! Hoorah!
Make a comment!
20 March 2002 - Wednesday
Now I have to go to an all-hands pep rally, and when I get back, TooMUSH
will be down! Sniff! But at least this will not impact my TBG
turn.
* * *
<TBG>
Tribune again, because I'm younger than my opposition. I need to figure
out how to make his taking credit for the president being nice to newbies
less appealing.
Maintain, maintain! Adventure, adventure! Hope desperately that Lady
Black, who could eat me like a tiny, nutritious bug, has no motivation
to do so. Make faces at people who can't read.
</TBG>
* * *
<AotBS>
That magic requires vitae has interesting implications for the D&D
vertebra that is magic items. To wit, you can't make a magic item that
works on its own, and to function for anyone who doesn't have Vitae
Control, it has to be able to actively suck vitae (which probably makes
it more expensive). Magical creatures are fine, though.
Hm. Well, if a magic item also stores vitae, instead of just drawing
it at need, presumably a friend with a healing spell or some other
vitae-redistribution power could fill it up. In typical use, this would
cause it to run dry just as you got to the bottom of trouble and were
looking for a way out.
Since Gea is a living entity, in theory I suppose you should be able
to get vitae from her to heal people or power magic items or whatever,
but in practice, no one is able to do it. The indications are that Gea
isn't very happy with her sapient inhabitants, given how unfriendly
wilderness areas are. (Not that this stops some of them from abetting or
joining in expanding those wilderness areas, of course.)
Returning to the question of exotic species available as PCs, this
gives us an answer right off (they didn't break the sun, so they don't
get the full effect of wilderness regions). A subtler effect is this:
Certainly, in the Age of the White Sun, whenever two species competed
for a resource, they didn't stop until one had eliminated all
competitors (whether by driving them to extinction or merely displacing
them), and over the long Ages, these conflicts had plenty of time to run
to completion. In the later Ages, that vitality has waned, and such
conflicts are likely to stalemate, or waver inconclusively. Eventually,
one side will win by default, being the last to succumb to extinction
through other causes, but in the stable environment of the Age of the Red Sun,
that could be an extremely long wait.
Therefore, it is perfectly plausible for exotic sophonts to exist
along side the standard Gean races. Now I just have to er make them up.
And, of course, figure out how to modify current spell-casting
classes to work with the new system.
And invent thousands of new feats dealing with vitae.
</AotBS>
* * *
Yum! Fish in a
vat!
Gea as the ultimate hive mind by gconnor (Thu Mar 21 21:09:12 2002)
You wrote:
Since Gea is a living entity, in theory I suppose you should be able to get vitae from her to heal people or power magic items or whatever, but in practice, no one is able to do it. The indications are that Gea isn't very happy with her sapient inhabitants, given how unfriendly wilderness areas are.
I'm assuming Gea is the name of the biosphere here. One way to approach it might be if Gea is alive, not in the way an organism is alive, but in the way a colony or hive is alive. This might explain why you can't draw vitae from Her, either its center is not close enough, or not close by, or too diffuse, like trying to scoop a fog into your bowl. But, you can target nearby living things, maybe, and maybe harming a creature harms Gea in a small way, like a mosquito to an elephant only more so.
There might be special magicks that allow non-localized life force to be used, tapping every living thing in a very small incremental way. But this would only be with the approval of the hive mind. Who knows, maybe the Lamps work this way? But if normal humans try to prick Gea, She probably doesn't bleed for them, not without a really good reason She can perceive. They should pick on someone their own size.
Anyway, perhaps this is useful blather, or perhaps if the idea doesn't fit your world I can recycle it for one of mine. :-)
Re: Gea by Trip (Fri Mar 22 08:40:45 2002)
Yah, this is along the lines I was thinking, although that shouldn't stop you from using the ideas yourself!
I think the physical structure of the planet is alive and part of Gea too, but responds only on long time scales; it's her bones, if you will. So possibly drawing vitae from that is like trying to scoop well solid stone into your bowl: if you wait long enough for it to weather to pebbles and sand, okay, but on a human timescale, not so useful.
Gea is both a single entity and a composite one, and probably other things that humans can't (can no longer?) understand. The phrase I'm using is "The mind of a world has room for many thoughts'> :) So yah, it's very difficult to interact with Gea directly; you can interact with individual living things or small colonies pretty easily, but the extent to which they're Gea as opposed to just themselves (not that those are opposed concepts, really) is pretty small.
Something that gets downplayed a lot in modern conceptions of the world-being is that humans really are part of/children of it. This might be more comforting if nature had even the slightest trace of sentiment. :)
Make a comment!
19 March 2002 - Tuesday
Finally, Angie's Evangelion DVDs, reclaimed from CZR, have been
returned to her, so she can lend them to us for work-anime. Except now
Ken's DVDs have been delivered, so Angie is superfluous. But er she has very
blue hair! And a vinyl
top!
* * *
<AotBS>
Okay, back to magic.
The basis of magic is "life force," which needs a better name. In
game terms, it's Vitality (and Wound Points) but that sounds kind of
cheesy. "Life force" or "life energy" is too long, "chi" might carry the
wrong connotations... enh, we'll just call it vitae for now, and make
faces at the Brits who confuse it with a résumé.
There are a lot of things you can use vitae for. Obviously, you use
it (and use it up) not getting clobbered, or at least not going down,
when people beat on you. This is pretty autonomic; the rules for
Vitality damage already cover it.
You can also use up vitae to exceed your normal limits. Usually, this
takes a Wis roll, but lets you boost your Str or movement by some amount
(+2 or +4 Str, +5' or +10' move?) in exchange for vitae.
If you are extra cool, you can take the feat Vitae Control, which
lets you spend vitae to boost your stats at will. It also lets you make a
save (or make a better save?) when something tries to suck vitae out of
you. You don't have to make the save if it's for a good cause, of course;
we'll get to that in a moment. Other feats (which have Vitae Control as a
prerequisite) will let you use vitae to do special cool things like toughen
your skin or stop breathing for extended periods of time.
Spell-casting also requires vitae, either large amounts to produce the
magical effect or relatively smaller amounts to tap another source of
energy. This suggests mages should be extra-buff, but that idea properly
belongs to the AotBS/Feng Shui crossover (almost certainly not
forthcoming). Instead, mages store some of the vitae their bodies produce
in talismans and fetishes (or in some cases, in their own bones). Black
magicians can sacrifice people to get large amounts of power at once, but
we'll assume you don't do things like that.
If you run out of stored vitae for spells, you can use your innate
energy; if you run out of that too, you can spend Wound Points as vitae,
but you won't enjoy it.
Since magic is powered by vitae, it can't create vitae, or the world
would explode in a positive feedback loop. Healing spells can only move
vitae from one living thing to another (remember what we said about good
causes?) or from a living thing to itself, in the case of using the
patient's own vitae to repair physical damage (at the rate of 5 vitae
per Wound Point healed), and even then not with perfect efficiency.
More later.
</AotBS>
* * *
Finished watching the Vampire Princess Miyu OAVs, which are
still much creepier than the TV series. Creepier art, somewhat creepier
protagonist, creepier minion/love-interest (in the TV series, Larva takes
off his mask! And talks! Sheesh!). The fourth and last OAV does exposit
extensively on Miyu's origin story, which is pretty creepy; I wonder if the
TV series will do something similar, and if so, how much they'll
change.
Vampire Princess Miyu by Flit (Wed Mar 20 10:54:42 2002)
Drool drool drool drool. Wanna see this.
Re: Vampire Princess Miyu by Trip (Wed Mar 20 13:36:03 2002)
Well, having watched the OAV tapes, I can lend them out. :) Ditto the TV series DVDs, except I only have the first three, and at least six are planned (and probably more if it's a full season or multiple seasons).
But now you live far far away, and I bet Moose is big enough to swallow a videotape whole anyway!
Make a comment!
18 March 2002 - Monday
Whee, Monday. Can I go back to sleep now?
* * *
Apparently not. Oh well. Angie gave me a Seafood Watch card, which I
can carry with me to figure out which seafood should not be purchased
(until I put it all on my external brain, anyway), and Gretchen said
nice things about Age of the Black Sun, so it's an okay Monday
morning.
* * *
<TBG>
There seems to be a block of voters who alternate voting for Majestik
Moose and not, so we alternate being Tribune. I guess I will just have
to ignore the vote and continue with the great work. Pblt.
Boring turn, sitting at a nowhere star to repair and maintain and do
an adventure, but that's still better than a turn that's exciting in the
bad way.
</TBG>
* * *
Well, if Gretchen (who is pretty picky) likes AotBS, I guess
I should keep working on it!
Character design is still fermenting (although I got some useful
idea-reflection from Carl on the 3e channel) so I will continue to leave
in the compost heap in the back. Today's digression: the Gean sky!
The most significant object in the sky is of course the nearest Lamp
(or Lamps, in regions of overlap). Lamps remain fixed in the sky, atop
their 200-league pillars, shedding a yellow-white glow over the domain
below. During the day, this light is bright enough to nourish plants and
warm the land over most of the domain (and brighter still at the very
center); at night, it still allows reasonable vision for most Geans.
Even at night, though, the point-source of a Lamp is too bright to look at
directly; during the day, it can cause permanent eye damage remarkably
quickly.
All the Lamps on Gea follow the same cycle of day and night, which
averages 12 hours of each but varies from 14 day/10 night to 10 day/14
night and back over the course of 360 days. This cycle no longer
corresponds to the astronomical motions of the cosmos, but few people
know this and fewer care.
The Black Sun actually appears as a faint purple blotch in the day sky,
or an orb the color of hot iron in the night sky, except when some flicker
of energy heats part of it orange-hot, or cracks it open to reveal the
yellow glare of the inside, or an eruption flares briefly blue-white. Its
cycle is no longer synchronized with that of the lamps; it traverses the
heavens 15 times in 16 Lamp-days.
The Moon (sometimes called Seelen) shines only by that fraction of the
Lamps' light that Gea reflects upward, making it completely invisible
during the day and smaller and dimmer (but otherwise similar) at night, its
complex topography visible only as a faint mottling. Seelen is the world of
the dead, where souls go to be purified and whence come ghosts and other
undead energies.
Also visible by Gea-light are a few small objects, little more than
points of light, which seem to circle the world in a few days; an exact
determination is difficult because they fade in and out of view. Similar
wandering stars precede and trail the moon by a sixth of its circuit,
more steady but with less detail.
The seven other worlds of the cosmos are also visible in the sky,
at least intermittently.
Eremis, the innermost world, can be seen as a faint red spark near
the sun, when it is not transiting or occulted by the solar disk, and
occasionally glows brighter when a solar eruption passes beneath it.
Eremis is the lucky star for travellers, merchants, and thieves -- if
there's a difference.
Pherodye, the planet of lovers, rakes, and fops, shines with a
green-tinged white light, brighter than the moon or any other planet.
Firey red-orange Rees is second only to Pherodye. It governs war and
murder, but also courage and fortitude.
Great Ezue, planet of kings and generals, often glows with a blue light,
bright or dim, but sometimes vanishes entirely, changing its luminosity
two or three times an hour.
The keenest eyes can resolve the white dot of Patichon into an
enlongated shape with a narrow waist, not unlike an hourglass, which is
undoubtedly why it is the planet associated with time and age.
Ranisue's faint violet light illuminates scholars and intellectuals,
and those who preserve the knowledge of ages past.
The outermost planet, Oseiron, only becomes visible at certain points
along its multi-century orbit, but then, and for some months or years
thereafter, it flickers with many colors, brightening and dimming
according to no known pattern.
Beyond all the planets lie the numberless stars, each the sun of its
own cosmos.
* * *
Perhaps Millbrae was more useful today than last fortnight. Perhaps
not. Time will tell.
I did, however, get the Seafood Watch card into my external brain, so
now I can emit it at people who have a) external brains and b) a taste
for seafood.
Make a comment!
17 March 2002 - Sunday
Less sluggish a-nest lying today, although not a lot less.
Grocery shopping, Chef Chu's for dinner, more grocery shopping, admiring
GregC's helpful comments on Japanese language.
And, finally unwrapping and watching my tapes of the Vampire
Princess Miyu OAVs, which someone (Tara? Rebecca? Geni?) gave me
for my birthday like five years ago. Indeed, the
art is higher quality, or at least more detailed, but the biggest
difference is that the OAVs are a lot creepier. And Miyu is so
much less sympathetic! I think it's the faintly insane giggling while
she explains that she couldn't care less what happens to humans, and
Himiko should just go home and pretend none of this ever happened,
before Miyu has to eat her.
Okay, and the catfight over the really cute teenage boy was pretty
disturbing too. I'll just be over here, inside this magic circle.
Vampire Princess Miyu by mony (Mon Mar 18 22:42:23 2002)
They were from Geni and I :)
Re: Vampire Princess Miyu by Trip (Tue Mar 19 09:51:20 2002)
That's what I thought, but I couldn't remember for sure, and Rebecca thought she might have been in on it, but of course her memory is not what it was before the ritual torture, so confusion abounded. Yay tiggiegifts!
Perhaps tonight I will watch the other tape, and go "Eeeee!" some more.
Make a comment!
16 March 2002 - Saturday
Amber High School today! And er that's about it, because I lay
sluggishly a-nest until the last plausible moment before going over to
Dave's, and then lay sluggishly a-floor until going back to my nest. But
we did finally get to Xocolotl, and Marith's character did explode (and
had to be tackled by twenty Jaguar Knights), and then we had sushi, and
then I finished watching what I have of the Vampire Princess
Miyu TV series. Want more!
Oh, and laundry. Do I know how to spend a Saturday evening or
what?
Make a comment!
15 March 2002 - Friday
Happy Ambarday!
* * *
After languishing on hold for 295729352 minutes, I finally got through
to someone at the post office who promised to have me helped. I hope they
do not fail me a second time.
* * *
No Evangelion for us! Since Angie promised to fetch us DVDs,
but failed, I think she should have to stand in front of the projector
making shadow animals for an hour, but this seems unlikely to be
approved.
* * *
<TBG>
Woot! I managed to pry a fighter of my tech level off the fish before it
exploded! And I have been reinstated as Tribune of the People since my main
opponent lost five votes. And I have gotten endorsements from the powerful
and fearsome, so perhaps I will continue to keep the position! And perhaps
the stupid annoying person who hates me for speaking out against piracy
against newbies will be eaten by the heavily armed newbies, and then life
will be good!
</TBG>
* * *
The USPS did not fail me twice! And, indeed, my mail included a sturdy
cardboard box, much tougher than any leverage I could possibly exert with a
little mailbox key (and, since it wasn't visibly dented, it was probably
right up under the lock bar, so I wasn't even gouging it with a corner).
Yay! Now I have a DVD of Oh My Goddess!!
Also, it is a weekend!
* * *
Okay, more stuff about Age of the Black Sun characters!
If it wasn't obvious, all Geans have their highest-leveled class as
their favored class, like book humans.
Which leads, of course, to the question of classes! Since, of the eleven
D&D base classes, seven are spell-casters of some type and another has
supernatural if not explicitly magical abilities, this leads directly to
the question of magic.
Um.
Even though this is explicitly a fantasy game, and even though book D&D
magic is swiped directly from Vance's Dying Earth books, it still
doesn't seem right for AotBS. I'm not sure what does seem right,
though. Perhaps more item-based magic? But elves should probably be able to
cast spells outright as well as make magic items. I think. Um!
Okay, semi-digression: I think AotBS will use Vitality and Wound Points,
like Star Wars d20, rather than D&D's hit points. The special effect for
Vitality is that it's life energy, "chi" if you like (though I hope to
avoid falling into wuxia wackiness). Well, okay, so is WP, but Vitality is
chi above and beyond what you need to just keep your heart pumping and your
brain ticking over. Which sounds like exactly what a magician should be
using to power spells, doesn't it? (Okay, or at least using to
reach the sources of power that can actually fuel flaming death
spheres.) So Vitality is both Champions Stun and CoC POW.
Told you it was only a semi-digression!
So, instead of having random numbers of spells per day, magicians can do
as much as they like until they run out of Vitality (or longer, if they
don't mind taking WP). Balance issues abound, of course, especially since
there are now two parameters: Vitality cost of spells, and Vitality
recovery rate. But that's okay. Or something.
Having to cough up your own personal life force to work magic does say
something about the tone, but not everything. I still like the idea of
heavily item-based magic, so perhaps items can hold Vitality for specific
spells, or amplify Vitality provided by the user.
Oops, I haven't even considered divine magic! Well, sun priests are
obviously SOL (er, so to speak), but Gea and mortal endeavors (war, love,
trade, theft, art) are still going strong. Hm. Gea (and presumably the
other worlds) are living entities, so a divine magician could get Gea to do
things without using much if any of his own Vitality, but mortal endeavors
are trickier. Possibly everyone who engages in such an endeavor contributes
some Vitality to a nonlocalized pool (held by Gea, maybe?) which clerics
can draw on, so the more popular the activity is, the more power clerics
can get.
Okay, I obviously don't have enough thought here yet. More later.
Make a comment!
14 March 2002 - Thursday
In one week I will be 040! (Or 0x20 for those of you
who prefer hex, but that's not nearly as dramatic.) For those who would
like to offer pre-emptive bribes to escape my senile maunderings, my
Amazon wishlist is a good place to start (and will probably continue to
be updated as I think of more things I would accept). Also, a new hat
would be good, as my current one is getting quite elderly, but I don't
have anything to cover my cranium while getting it rejuvenated.
More demands later, after I take hostages.
* * *
Hm, I will be at anime on the night of my birthday, and at Knights of
Atlantis (take three) the night after. I wonder if this will matter at
all.
* * *
Grr! When I got home and tried to get my mail, the lock would only
turn a couple of degrees! I suspect that the carrier jammed something
into the box so skillfully that it completely jams the lock (which just
has an exposed bar on the inside). Last time this happened, only a
corner of the package was in the way and I was able to eventually mangle
it enough to get the box open. But apparently the carrier has refined
his technique. Grr!
* * *
No more Haunted Junction for us! The anti- faction has
triumphed! But in its place we get Martian Sucessor Nadesico,
which is pretty entertaining. I like the ditzy captain, who was picked
because she aced all the military science simulations she ever took,
being actually competent, and not in the accidental way that female
anime characters often are.
Raymond (our host) gave White Day choco to another man's fiancee!
Shock! Scandal!
* * *
Kit wrote! Two new chapters of her novel! Now I feel bad for only
writing lame things. I should write more Transmundane or
Heaven Help Hiaku! or, really, anything that is actually
challenging.
But, unless I am mishearing, 'hiaku' is Japanese for 'hurry', which
seems like it should have some sort of implication for HHH!. Maybe
Hiaku will just be fast. :)
KoA by tamago (Fri Mar 15 10:02:41 2002)
Well, at least I will be able to see you at KoA. Rehearsals mean I won't see you on your actual birthday. Bummer. :(
Cranium size by Trip (Fri Mar 15 14:18:50 2002)
My current hat is marked M, but is somewhat too large for me. However, the S I tried on was slightly too small. I have no idea what this translates to in numeric hat sizes. There was one pretty cool hat, though, that had a slighty elastic, tapered inside band, so it fit a wide range of sizes. (Well, the technical design was cool, but the style was not so stylin', which is why I have the hat I do.)
Cranium Size by Tamago (Fri Mar 15 18:25:19 2002)
Take a measuring tape. Wrap it around your head where you would like your hatband to rest. Measure that. Tell us how many inches and/or centimeters it is. This will help. Do you need a tape measure?
hiaku, hayaku by gconnor (Sat Mar 16 03:03:08 2002)
The online dictionary doesn't list 'hiaku' as a word (hee-ah-ku). Here are some close ones though:
hi-aku (hee-ah-ku) prefix "hi-" (not) + aku (evil) = not evil
"hi" means "not" and is a prefix like UN- in English (def)
"aku" has lots of homonyms, evil, bad luck, bad influence, plague, ill feeling (def)
hiyaku (hee-yah-ku) leaping/jumping (def)
such as ronri-no-hiyaku logical leap
hiyaku (hee-yah-ku) secret medicine/specific remedy (def)
The word you're probably hearing is "hayaku" (hah-yah-ku) which typically means fast or hurry...
We now return you to your regularly scheduled journal... /gconnor
Hiaku by Trip (Sun Mar 17 16:12:34 2002)
Okay, I was mishearing. I blame it on my American upbringing. "What do you mean there are more than two vowels?" :)
But "Hi-aku", for any or all of the meanings you give for "aku", seems like a fine name for a monk!
Luuucky! :)
Re: Cranium size by Trip (Sun Mar 17 16:13:28 2002)
Chrisber measured my cranium and came up with, I think, 22".
Make a comment!
13 March 2002 - Wednesday
Time for Even More Age of the Black Sun blithering! This time, as
promised, peoples of Gea. (No extra level of indentation, since this is
rules spoo, not description.)
Starting with the base D&D PC races, even if they seem unworthy of
association with my genius, it seems pretty clear that the ancient peoples
who broke the sun and conquered other worlds and all were elves (although
probably more on the Tolkein/Celtic model of tall, beautiful,
nigh-immortal, and possessed of almost enough magical power to justify
their arrogance). The original stock is extinct by now, but humans (in game
terms, half-elves, half-orcs, and maybe orcs) are their degenerate
descendents.
After this many aeons, though, having only three (or four, if orcs
are viable PCs) descendant races is certainly justifiable (they can't
interbreed, so they remain distinct, and the rest of the lines died out)
but maybe it would be more interesting to have a spectrum.
Okay! Mix'n'match traits! Combining everything found in humans,
half-elves, and half-orcs, and editing to taste, we get this list. A race
(not a species, since they can all interbreed if they really want) gets to
pick four points worth of traits from the list; point costs are given in
[]. In theory, only the GM should be making up races, but in practice, the
players can probably mix uptheir own trait combos and say their PCs are
Damn Foreigners. Races made using this table are collectively referred
to simply as Geans.
- [ 0] Long Lifespan (use half-elf aging table, can't have Frail or Fast Learner)
- [ 0] Short Lifespan (use half-orc aging table)
- [ 1] Nighteyes (x2 Lowlight Vision, big eyes)
- [ 1] Observant (free Search roll when within 5' of something secret)
- [ 1] Reduced Sleep (only need half the regular hours of sleep)
- [ 1] Sharp Senses (+2 Spot, +2 Listen)
- [ 2] Cave-eyes (x4 Lowlight Vision plus 5' Blindsight, great big eyes)
- [ 2] Fast Learner (+4 skill points at level 1, +1 skill point/level after)
- [ 2] Hardy (+2 Constitution)
- [ 2] Lithe (+2 Dexterity)
- [ 2] Strong (+2 Strength, probably pretty big)
- [ 2] Versatile (1 bonus feat at level 1)
- [-1] Clumsy (-2 Dexterity)
- [-1] Devolved Mentality (-2 Intelligence)
- [-1] Frail (-2 Constitution)
- [-1] Savage (-2 Charisma, play up being violent)
- [-1] Weak (-2 Strength, probably either not very big or pretty fat)
So a 'half-elf' would be Nighteyes, Observant, Sharp Senses, and
Reduced sleep; a 'human' would be Fast Learner and Versatile; and a
'half-orc' would be Strong, Hardy, Cave-eyes, Devolved Mentality, and
Savage; for four points each. Close enough to the book.
Halflings are human-like enough that we can claim they're an
offshoot, either engineered for survivability and low resource usage in
the distant past, or shrunken and with good saving throws from aeons of
harsh conditions (read, persecution).
I'm not sure what to do about dwarves and gnomes, but I've never
cared that much for dwarves, and gnomes are kind of freaky with their
spell-like abilities and groundhog speech and all, so I don't feel bad
leaving them out at least for now.
But if this is to be an exotic setting, there should be exotic races,
right? Possible sources for additional sapient races: descendents of
non-elven sophonts from the past, uplifted animals, other modified Geans
(like halfings), artificial creatures (either hybrids or made from
scratch), and creatures from other worlds or other cosmoi (possibly
uplifted/modified/hybridized). So, plenty of opportunities for
alienness! However, since the processes that made or imported these
bizarre races ceased a long time ago, any that are around have had aeons
to come to equilibrium with the ecology, which sort of suggests that if
they were better than Geans (have more than 0 ECL) they would have taken
over by now, and if they were wimpier, they would have gone extinct by
now. The one obvious way to get around this is creatures that can only
live (or at least only breed) in extreme conditions; it's hard to take
over the world when you have to return to an active volcano to have
kids, or when you can only survive at the bottom of the ocean. That
reduces the possibilities for exoticness, but on the other hand, it
keeps them exotic, so that's okay.
Maybe one or two exotic PC races would be okay, but I'll have to
think.
As always, comment me!
* * *
It is probably wrong of me to notice that Vampire Princess
Miyu has a remarkably low cheesecake quotient. But I will make up
for that flaw by praising both the opening and closing music!
Seven episodes down, four more until I run out of published DVDs,
sniff!
Make a comment!
12 March 2002 - Tuesday
SUPEREXTRACOOL!
Our Admin of Infinite Power is a falconer when she isn't busy saving AV
from its own incompetence, and this morning she brought one of her birds
by, a young male red-tailed hawk (less than a year old, so his tail won't
really be red until after the year's molt). I wimped out on holding him,
but got to pet him while a cow orker held him. Wow. Predators are pretty
much always cool, but raptors have a particularly high predation-to-weight
ratio: the Hawk With No Name had just been weighed at 840g, but was the
volume of a 1.5-2kg cat.
I liked the way its spread tail and half-folded wings formed a complete
cloak of feathers; it's the sort of thing one reads about, but it doesn't
seem realistic until one sees it. And my was that a specialized
flesh-ripping beak and prey-seizing set of talons. (I was amused but not
surprised to learn that hawks have the same combat maneuvers as other
pouncers: grab hold, go for the spine or throat.) And that hawks are pretty
much useful only as hunting partners; they can be trained, but not
domesticated (which makes sense; they have no social instincts to subvert
for humanity's own ends).
Okay, perhaps I have read too much biology to have a properly emotional
reaction, but Angie was there to provide bouncing and squeaking. Anyway, it
was a darn cool hawk.
[Late-breaking update: hawk
pictures! (courtesy of Dave Brandi)]
* * *
More Age of the Black Sun blithering:
With stunning originality, we'll call this world Gea (with a hard
G).
Gea divides naturally into domains according to the distribution of
the Lamps, and within each domain, into rings of temperature1: unlivably hot at the base of the Lamppost,
but progressively cooler as one moves outward and the Lamp is both more
distant and lower to the horizon. At the edges of a domain, the Lamp is
so low in the sky that rough terrain forms regions of perpetual darkness
(possibly alleviated by Lamp of the neighboring domain, if that's not
blocked as well). In fact, the borderlands often are more mountainous
than the central regions, as though Gea were cupping her hands around the
warmth of the Lamps, leaving the interstitial regions dark and
barren.
Much of Gea is covered in ocean, where the reverse seems to hold true:
the seafloor rises in the central and middle reaches of a domain, to
support islands, and falls off into the abyssal darkness in the
interstices. There are plenty of islands of all sizes, but the oceanic
domains still support much smaller populations than the dry-land
ones.
1: Since the Lamps are evenly distributed over the whole
world, latitude is inconsequential and mostly forgotten
(Trigonometry aside: If the Lampposts are 200 leagues high, and each
is just on the horizon at the far corners of its triangular domain, then
the distance to that far corner is 1613 leagues, and the domain is 2794
leagues along each side. Gea as a whole is 6673 leagues in radius, or
13346 leagues in diameter. If these are short leagues, equal to about
3km, then Gea is three times the diameter of the Earth, and has nine
times the surface area.)
The Lampposts are about half a league around, made of something
similar to glass but apparently indestructible, and seem to be completely
immobile relative to one another. Over the course of the Age of the Red
Sun, many of them developed valleys or lakes at their bases as the moving
earth split itself open on the adamant Lampposts.
Since plants like extra sun more than people do, the best regions for
farming are not the best regions for living in comfort, which makes Gea a
world of absentee landlords and reinforces any class structure that might
otherwise exist.
Next, actual citizenry! Or at least population! Er, not that PCs will
know more than a small fraction of any of this unless they are Highly
Educated, but.
* * *
Useless parasite.
Make a comment!
11 March 2002 - Monday
I had a brief fit of hyperness this morning, but soon settled down into
Monday lethargy... just in time for the easy front-end reconfiguration that
I did all the setup for on Friday to go horribly, terribly wrong!
Okay, it wasn't that bad; service wasn't interrupted, and
beating the few wayward machines into submission was pretty easy once I
got the hang of it, but still, it was more excitement than I really
wanted from that ticket.
* * *
<TBG>
I have been ousted as Tribune of the People by the slimy politician
Majestik Moose, hmph! But perhaps after he does nothing actually useful
for a few turns, people will stop voting for him.
For reasons that are not clear, the Fish ship that I thought would
immediately explode instead tried to close range, giving me time to shoot
it into little pieces and eat the pieces (including an artifact, which has
curses out the wazoo, but gives me actual stargate keys!). This round, I go
for the cutting-edge Fish ship, which is actually one tech level higher
than my average! I think I can take 'em, or at least trim off enough that I
won't die when it selfdestructs.
</TBG>
* * *
Over the weekend I considered how to combine the ancient Earth thing with the general clamor
for D&D3e, but I was too lame to even update my journal on my pathetic
doings, never mind extra bonus blithering. Now, however, I have extra Diet
Dr Pepper to fuel my blithering about...
The Age of the Black Sun
The Age of the White Sun ended when the Sun itself was mortally
wounded. No more than that is know, for the Age of the White Sun is now
legend, or perhaps only myth.
The age that followed, that of the Golden Sun, was a time of great
deeds that we can no longer reproduce, or even fully comprehend.
Civilization reaching its highest peaks of power and knowledge, extending
to the other worlds of this cosmos, and even other cosmoi. Despite the
power they wielded, though, the people of this age could not heal the
fading sun, nor even free themselves from it: no other-worldly or
extra-cosmic colony flourished, although some still survived when the
last travellers crawled back to their home cosmos.
Denied escape from the dying sun, the people of the Age of the Orange
Sun were forced to turn all their energies to reviving it, rising to
heights of greatness and stooping to pits of infamy in the process.
Perhaps they slowed its decline, perhaps they hastened it; certainly they
did not manage to reverse it. What they did accomplish was the salvage of
a few scraps of uncontaminated sunfire, which they hung on pillars two
hundred leagues tall, as lamps to light the world.
In the Age of the Red Sun, the glories and horrors of the past were
gradually destroyed, forgotten, or simply left to decay through neglect,
but at least the future of life was assured.
Until the first Lamp went out.
Now it is only a question of how long until the last Lamp fails. The
sun is a barely visible purple blotch in the daytime sky or a sullen red
disk at night, intermittently marred by orange cracks or brilliant
flares, and when the Lamps are gone it will be of no help in warding off
the final night.
Life is tenacious, though, and those peoples prone to accepting death
as part of the eternal cycle have long since passed from existance. Grand
works are rare, and insignificant in comparison to those of ages past,
but crops are still sown and reaped, cities still built and razed,
kingdoms built up and brought low.
So does this add up to D&D? Well, it's got a primitive society, but with
ancient wonders to stumble across and be eaten by, lost wisdom from a time
when gods issued press releases, and a populace that in general isn't prone
to rocking the sinking boat, making adventurers big freaks. And, if the
campaign gets that high-level, there's an overwhelming threat the whole
world needs to be saved from. How can you go wrong?
But no more blithering now, because I must go watch more Vampire
Princess Miyu!
Comment me, baby!
* * *
On the other hand, a TV series has more room for subplots in addition
to the mandatory Threat of the Week. Continuing characters, that sort of
thing.
I think a lot of the apparent simplicity comes from the simpler art;
artists can't get as obsessively detailed when they have to put out an
episode every week.
Great campaign idea by Carl (Tue Mar 12 08:56:32 2002)
Sounds like a great campaign idea, go for it!
More Age of the Black Sun blithering by Trip (Tue Mar 12 13:07:58 2002)
Look for it in an upcoming entry!
Make a comment!
10 March 2002 - Sunday
I was up and laundered and dressed and lunched and leaving for grocery
shopping by the hour at which I crawled from my parasitenest yesterday,
which is certainly a step in the right direction! Unfortunately, I followed
up on my early diligence by doing more or less nothing the rest of the day.
Finally I went to dinner and did more grocery shopping (Trader Joe's, yum!)
and then Kit told me I should watch some of the Vampire Princess
Miyu TV series that Marith and Tamago got me for Christmas, so I
did!
IIRC, the OAVs were only a half-hour each, but the TV episodes1 still seem a lot shallower (but not lighter, as
I almost typed): Problem manifests, problem is revealed, Miyu kills
problem. But the obligatory "cute" "animal" companion is sufficiently
creepy.
1: Okay, the two I've seen so far.
Pokethulhu by Carl (Tue Mar 12 08:55:19 2002)
I haven't seen Miyu. What's creepy about the cute animal companion?
Re: Pokéthulhu by Trip (Tue Mar 12 12:43:16 2002)
One expects lines like "So? They're just humans" from an immense ravening demon, or even a slinky vampiric femme fatale, but it's more disturbing when they're delivered by a small, vaguely amorphous, vaguely rabbit-like creature, with one ear flopped over one eye. Plus, sometimes it unflops the ear, revealing a HUGE YELLOW BLOODSHOT EYE that has second sight or something.
Make a comment!
9 March 2002 - Saturday
Inert parasite! I didn't get up until almost 14, because I am a big
chitinous lump. Splut.
After that, things improved slightly. Okay, very slightly.
But I did read Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering, and now
recommend it highly to everyone! Well, okay, mostly to people who GM or
intend to GM someday, but it might be worthwhile for people who merely
intend to play in games with GMs.
Since the whole thing is only 33 pages (counting the ToC, not
counting the ads) I can't review it too extensively without
getting close to retyping it, but the basic thesis is "If you
and your players are having fun, you are a good GM". Since it's easy for
the GM to base her game around whatever folds her particular ferret, and
Laws-sensei knows this, the bulk of the book is about how to most
effectively pander to one's players: how to identify the common types of
players and what each of them is likely to want from various aspects of
campaign and adventure design, the proper use of Crunchy Bits, how get
players to pay attention, and like matters. Plus, how to prepare for
spontaneity, and the ever-popular two-random-GURPS-worldbooks method for
seeding world design.
* * *
In the evening, I finally got around to watching the first DVD of
Love Hina. Another impulse buy, admittedly, but at least this was
something I had heard other real people1
speak well of. I was not disappointed! It is fairly silly, but not in a
surreal way like Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko or Haunted
Junction, being set in the modern world with no added fantastic
elements except the main character's ability to withstand physical abuse
(okay, and the energy blast vs PD, OAF shinai). The opening theme is
strange, but I think it's growing on me. People who want male eye candy
or object to female eye candy may not like Love Hina as much as
I do, but pblt to them!
And yes, Love Hina is a lot like Megatokyo, only without
Mecharentazilla and vampires. So far.
1: As opposed to the twisted subterranean gnome-like
creatures that write cover blurbs.
Make a comment!
8 March 2002 - Friday
Woot! My TBG ship is now all bloated from all-you-can-eat sushi!
Sadly, the next Fish ship will just explode straight off, so I won't get
anything from it, and will probably even lose a couple of the modules I
got last time, but that's okay. Nothing I actually care about will be
damaged.
Some excitement trying to convert some of the front ends from one
sub-version of the JDK to another, but no one died and service wasn't
even interrupted. So there!
We did get to see more Neon Genesis Evangelion at lunchtime.
We are still watching episodes I've seen, but I think we're approaching
the end of them. Soon, all-new brainwarping!
* * *
Finally, I get to read this week's comics!
Make a comment!
7 March 2002 - Thursday
Just me and Bruce here keeping AltaVista running, whee. But nothing
is going wrong, so we probably aren't doomed.
As a corollary, no work-anime. Sniff!
* * *
Whisman Station Anime
went off without noticeable hitch, though. I felt so guilty for riding
the bus from my place to California that I walked the rest of the way
(and found a better way than I used before), which was cold but
virtuous. No new serieses tonight, although there was talk of watching
Martian Successor Nadesico, and also of dropping Haunted
Junction. I am Sufficiently Amused by Haunted Junction but
maybe that's because we watch it at 21:30, when my brain is shutting
down and doesn't want anything requiring thought, but slackers like
Kirby are just waking up and want intellectual stimulation.
Walking all the way home was equally cold, but I had Dave to bibble
at me, which made it much more enjoyable than walking alone.
Make a comment!
6 March 2002 - Wednesday
I successfully seized a bunch of easy tickets yesterday just before
going home, and knocked them all off this morning. Now I struggle with
Apache authentication wombats.
"Ow!" I say, "Not in the face! Not in the face!"
* * *
However, in TBG I seem to be about to eat a Fish ship, by cruelly
taunting it with the prospect of being able to close to adjacent and
self-destruct to maximum effect on each combat round until I destroy it
utterly. Hopefully, I will destroy it utterly before it
successfully closes, or else there will be much pain.
* * *
Marith and Christy are the best friends ever! They
gave me three DVDs of the Vampire Princess Miyu TV
series, which I have never seen but wanted to get! Yay!
Then we played Unexploded Cow, and I won by exploding all my
cows even though Jim saved the best towns! And there was much
Fluxx but only one blank card was made into a real card. We had
ideas for many more, though!
Jim has a job (contract-to-perm at Skymoon Ventures), but is such a
feeb he hasn't put it in his LiveJournal!
Ayse spent the evening sitting in the hallway because the signal from
her wireless hub next door wouldn't reach all the way into the
Bertani-Youngs' livingroom and she wanted to work on MP3 stuff of some
kind. But we like her anyway!
Make a comment!
4 March 2002 - Monday
I had a bookstore accident. Only $35, but I don't need more
books! I am falling farther and farther behind! Obviously I need to give
up on those other timesinks, like sleep and employment...
* * *
Warning! Heavy D&D3e geekery! Flee now if this interests you not!
Okay, that's got rid of them.
I was thinking about sorcerers, and how they are really very much
like wizards, which is for good reasons, but sort of loses the unique
sorcerish flavor. So how might the sorcerer class be seasoned?
As an extremely rough draft, do this:
Relabel the Spells Known table as "Powers Available", but leave the
numbers the same. Relabel the Spells per Day table as "Total Uses per
Day" and double the numbers. Powers Available are selected as sorcerers
select spells, but each new Use per Day gained has to be permanently
assigned to one power. The uses can be divided evenly among all powers
of the level, put all into one power and none into the others, or any
other arrangement desired. These powers are Spell-like Abilities, not
spells, so no components are required. As a corollary, levels in sorcerer
don't count as spell-caster levels (although the sorcerer's class level
is used to determine any aspect of his powers that depends on caster
level) so neither item creation feats nor metamagic feats apply.
Any powers that would require a costly material component require the
sorcerer to perform some sort of ritual act with materials of equal cost
every week, or lose the power until the ritual can be performed. Powers
that require XP expenditure still require it.
Ditch familiars. Raise hit die to d6; sorcerers are not as bookish
as wizards. Raise skill points per level to 4+Int_Mod. Adjust class
skills as needed.
This is very very rough, as I said, but indicates the line
of my thought: truly innate power, not just wizardry without spellbooks,
and in significant quantities, but much less flexible.
Writing up the new sorcerer for real, I'd probably shift the gains in
Uses per Day to more closely follow the gain in Powers Available (or,
mostly equivalently, permit some uses to be deferred until a later
level), so the sorcerer doesn't get stuck with 6+Cha_bonus uses in the first
power he takes at a given level, and only 6 more total to divide among
the 2-3 other powers of that level. If something beyond spells seemed
called for (ie, playtesting determined that a new sorcerer is
noncompetitive), possibly a Special Sorcerer Power could be gained every
N levels, something like internalizing a power to be a supernatural
instead of spell-like ability, or converting a power with uses_per_day +
Cha_bonus >= 10 to one usable at will, or gaining small amounts of
energy resistance. Depending on just how bad the deficiency is, this may
or may not call for a reduction in Total Uses per Day.
You may now mock me.
New Improved Sorcerer by Trip (Tue Mar 5 13:28:18 2002)
Discussion on the 3E channel on Too suggests that even with twice the total uses per day of an old sorcerer, the new version is weaker because the reduction in flexibility is so great. Which means the Special Sorcerer Feats are go!
If you couldn't tell, the sorcerer feats are to a) provide more variation in powers without giving more powers, and b) let the sorcerer become more like the magic-using critter from which he is descended. An industrious GM could make up lists of allowed powers and feats depending on the ancestral creature.
Other sorcerer ideas by Image (Thu Mar 7 14:01:30 2002)
I like this starting point. My thoughts...
First, critiques.
- If a tenth level wizard really wants to cast forty magic missiles, he can, because he can prepare magic missile in any spell slot from first level on up.
- Sorcerers, in vanilla D&D3E, can use wizard wands and scrolls and probably use them more than wizards do. It overcomes much of the sorcerer's limited spell repertoire limitation. It's worth it to consider how this new sorcererthing reacts to wands and scrolls and other spell-storage fu.
- The bard already gets d6s, no familiar, and 4+INT per level. Clearly the intent of the sorcerer was to be something different (the sorcerer flavor text obviously has very little to do with what the class writeup is actually like).
Now, some additional options.
- There's a feat in the wiz/sorc splatbook that lets you turn a spell into a spell-like ability, usable once per round as a standard action, forever -- but requires that you give up a spell per day eight levels higher. Use that as a starting point to make sorcerers able to do some low-level spell effects at will without per-day limits, maybe?
- Some work with sorcerers online has done such things as 'chain spells' -- identify spell progressions (obscuring mist, fog cloud, acid cloud, stinking cloud, cloudkill, or monster summoning I-IX, or whatever) that permit the sorcerer to move a single spell slot upwards over time, so the 15th-level sorcerer is not forever stuck with monster summoning I.
- One might also expand sorcerers' potential spell lists to be any spell in the book, but limit each sorcerer to a couple of schools, or make those spells not from the favored schools cost double. It always struck me that the true specialists should be sorcerers (so that not every sorcerer winds up with the same set of third-level spells -- haste, fly, fireball).
Make a comment!
3 March 2002 - Sunday
Adam is cursed! His car didn't start, he lost the stylus to his
external brain, and the computer on which his Champions character was
stored went down. However, he was able to obtain a rental car quickly
and easily, he found his spare stylus, and he was able to reconstruct
his character while I finished mine. We even got seated at Hobee's after
a 0-minute wait, at 11:30 on Sunday!
After (re)finishing characters, we played a quick battle against
whatever was ripping open tanker cars full of corn syrup and sucking
them dry. When Earl plopped the wind-up bumblebee onto the battlemap and
it trundled, buzzing, right onto the railroad car where half the team
was lurking, play could not continue for several minutes.
We mostly triumphed, although there was some sadness that the bee had
to be put down, and the villain who had stolen it from the secret
beekeeper lair did escape. No team members were caught taking drugs,
which is actually a pretty good trick.
* * *
I successfully shopped for groceries.
Yay for triumphs! by liralen (Tue Mar 5 09:25:58 2002)
Hoorah for the triumph!
Sadness about having to put down the bee. That's very cool that it bumbled in such an entertaining manner! Yay!
Make a comment!
2 March 2002 - Saturday
Today, we watched more Ceres, which would have caught us all
up except that I got another DVD this past week and Rebecca had to take
off early. I continue to believe that my hypothesis is correct, but it
would be a spoiler, so I won't tell you what it is. Neener neener!
I also started to make a character for tomorrow's Champions game, but
lost enthusiasm or inspiration half-way through, because I suck. I am
also pretty rusty at Champions (I mean, how can you just forget that 60
x 4/7 is
34, and have to work it out? Using a calculator!)
Make a comment!
1 March 2002 - Friday
Well, no AQoJ for us! Earl has to minister to Cat, who is
full of strep germs and may or may not have donated some to Earl, and
Aberdeen is full of unspecified germs (but probably is keeping them all
to herself). I guess that answers the question of when we could possibly
watch Ceres. And I can work on a character for Earl's game which was
going to be on Sunday and now um dunno, but I'll be ready!
Make a comment!
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Sproing!
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