Venturing deeper into the volcano caves, we encountered two rock lobsters which liked the molten hot magma. After we dealt with them, we found there were other things that liked the magma. In fact, they were made of magna, using their internal heat to melt into the rock and extract ores, and chuck them into a rift into the fire plane...
We did try some negotiation, but the lack of speaking magmaese stopped us from coming to an understanding, and then the warlock got bored and attacked (an impetuous streak that another party member would suffer from). In the battle, the party's fire-based abilities proved... less than useful, and I (the damage magnet) reached a new nadir and momentarily passed out. However, we eventually proved ourselves victorious, and scored a magma blade (fire based weapon that literally drips magma)!
The locals were suitably impressed, and the priest told our tales (as he had accompanied us with the warlord out for the adventure). We set up a new colony and spent the time training up the savages to fight off the pirates and got our hands on some more shiny magical items (including a neat amulet I got).
We decided that the pirates would be good to deal with, and thought a good way to do this would be to get our own pirate ship then infiltrate the pirate ship flotilla. While searching, we investigated rumour of a large whale which we did find and proved less whaley and more woodeny. It was a large (extremely large) upturned ship with clockwork missiles and a form of a steam engine. And clockwork golems, but we managed to bash them without too many problems...
And lizard creatures. Or something like them. Rather than try to get them to help us ransack the ship, the other ranger thought that attacking was more interesting, and we got into another fight. I held an entire flank by myself, and even went into underwater fighting. The main chaps were defeated, but some little guys got away. We decided to leave the ship to them for now, and simply move on with our adventures.
[END]
Thursday, 21 August 2008
The Chronicles of Risan: Part the Fourth
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
What's a mere 14 years?
I could do a post about Madonna's 50th... but it turns out, she's only 36! (About the age she was when she made Evita.) 36? Huh, that's not so exciting in a nice-round-number way...
(Wow, you mean the spiritual religion she's promoting claims she's younger than her physical age? Who'da thought flattery would work out like that? I mean, the universe...)
[END]
TSV the 59th
Yep, another helping of TSV is on the net, this one being TSV #59. One of the more interesting pieces is the first part of an interview with Andrew Pixley. He always has interesting stuff to say, and this example is no exception. There are also two good pieces by Peter Adamson, A Carnival of Metaphors and The Machinery of Survival (in which I am credited with helping. Not sure why. Maybe I lent him a copy of Iceburg?)
There is also stuff by me in there. I have a very detailed piece on what happens during the Millennium in the DW universe. I'm sure it's useful to someone. I also contribute to the reviewing, clocking in review of The Curse of Fatal Death (which reads like I thought people had watched it before reading my review) and The Face of Evil (a very bad review, as in the review was bad, not the story. A few saving graces, but there is a far better review in the next issue). Not my best work to be honest.
As ever, check out Paul Scoones and Alden Bates.
[END]
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
Not bored games
At the last WARGS, I decided I didn't want to do the usual Shadowrun mission. Sure, they are fun, but... yeah, I wanted to try something else. (That said, I did buy the rule book, so I can finally potentially create a character that I have in mind...)
So, instead I went for option B. It could have been another role-playing game, but people wanted to play board games. Thus, board games it was.
Pandemic was first, in which we are a group fighting disease outbreaks. We had two games because in the first game, on the very first player's turn, we lost. (Well, we had one last spot before we officially lost, but basically, we were done.) In the second game, we very nearly won. It's a cooperative game, and I like that. Makes it easier to work out what's going on if the other players are helping you strategise. But we got close... just ran out of time/turns. Fun, but I think hard to beat.
Second game was Zooloretto, with the Aquaretto add-on. In this, each player tried to make the best zoo possible (either normal land-based zoo or water-based animal zoo). There's a lot of strategy involved, in which I'm not that great, so no surprise I didn't win. But I did come third out of five with a nice 42 points. Woo!
I did spot Thud, which I do want... but at $100, not just yet...
[END]
Monday, 18 August 2008
HC Again
Surprise! Inspired by what I did in a previous mod (at least, I shall assume so, even against any evidence), Pete jumped in and surprised us all by GMing a mod!
Based on a film he saw at his recent film festival, which I correctly guessed (note: guessed) as Russian in origin, it saw us dealing with a time line up against the worst horror of all: Timmy (Logan's character) as team lead. Frankly, death was a more attractive alternative... Dead Daughters: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.
There was also chatting afterwards, and it was just chatting. It really didn't deserve the title of Gamer Talk 36.
[END]
TP:TNP
Do you remember the Tomorrow People? That guy walking his turtle? The cereal maker trying to control the world? Danny John-Jules overacting?
What? No, not John and Mike and Stephen, but Adam and Megabyte and Ami. Yep, I'm talking about the Tomorrow People: The New Generation, which ran in the 1990s.
Oh, dear, gods, but it was bad. I'm surprised it managed to last three seasons (five stories of five episodes each)! It lost a lot of the maturity of the previous series, and became more "kids solve mysteries by convenient plot twists", with the main power used being teleportation (which was used a lot). The stories were weak (a couple of mad scientist stories and a Pod People rip off), and the main stars weren't much.
This was covered up to some degree by the guest stars: Jean Marsh, Connie Booth, Christopher Benjamin, Christopher Lee and Danny John-Jules to name some big names that turned up in this series for no reason that can be a boost for their career.
I like the 1970s series, and so wanted to like this when I first saw it 10ish years ago. Never quite lived up to it, and the quality of the series doesn't really improve with rewatching.
If you feel like you must watch it, it is available on DVD, and quite cheaply too.
[END]
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Nah-nia
I've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia books, as the movies only tell part of the stories, and these are great works of literature.
Well, maybe 'great' is too strong a word. As might be 'literature'.
These are certainly children's books, and CS writes to his audience, without talking down to his audience. Let me be clear that he gets to the level of 'buddy' very successfully, without becoming condescending.
However, there are some very badly written passages (The Horse and His Boy springs to mind), and of course they were written fifty years ago now, and times have changed. And there's the Christian imagery (and it is Christian "influenced" as opposed to retelling Christian tales). Some parts are more heavy handed than the others, with the heaviest being The Last Battle, with the ending where the kids are glad that real world events happened. Um, yeah, I'm not seeing lots of children wanting to replicate that idea. And there are other moments scattered around...
But, to be honest, most of the time these are simply adventure stories that are more fantasy than religious indoctrination. They work as the former a lot better than the latter, and in that regard these should be read (especially if you've only seen the movie). They're a nice enough read to pass the time, and contain lots of fun ideas. Ignoring the religious overtones (which is pretty easy to do), these are a decent enough set of fantasy books, if not the greatest works of all time.
[END]
