A. N. #0: The Theory goes Something like this

Poul paced around the apartment in a blend of surprise and bewilderment. Most of that was directed at the other person in the room. Heinlein Siannodel was an interesting blend of both Elf and Eladrin. That was something that had let the two bond at among anything at high school and lead to them both becoming Huskies in the terms of higher education. Poul rubbed the stumps of his horns. He had never intended to go for the Hellboy look. For one thing he was a few shades too dark leaning more to crimson than comic book red. For another his fashion sense was more in line with the world outside. But underneath the leather armor he wore a t-shirt that on the back asked a question that read “Out of African?” under a logo with a lion’s head on it. His cloak was anther oddity in that it had both secret compartments, and had zippers on both the entrances to said compartments and the front of the cloak. In contrast Heinlein wore a shirt with easily removable sleeves and jeans.

“Let me get this straight,” Poul said trying to not add frustration to the mix. “Because it makes little sense. You want to send me to a plane that you, a planeswalker, can’t easily reach? Call me crazy, but doesn’t that sound like Zendikar?”

“Add in a bit of Alara during Its shards period and you get what I mean,” Heinlien added. “In addition, we have another problem of having only tech being the direct line of sight, but in order to get you there you need to be coming at it from here. From our earth to there would be like aiming for a bulls eye edge on. Also be on the look out for strange places and objects called ‘Ætherfacts’.”

“Strange how? We talking time war weird, or more of a Lovecraft weird?”

“More along the lines of WTF weird. The last one took me off Faerun, and dumped me in a town made up of people that were long past dead. All were of high intellect.”

“Examples would be helpful.”

“Try both Shakespeare and Tolkein.”

“That would do. Any idea of magic drain?”

Hienlein sighed as he punched in the coordinates of .”As far as I know the magic is normal, so Athas-like is out of the question. But Like I said not so sure of the other five. As far as tech goes, that could be any one’s guess. From just a cursory tour I found enough to say that Isher was torn apart by means of some unknown force. Be careful your on a new level of power.”

With that said, the wormhole came to life inside the same frame that Poul walked through. Poul walked to the dimensional bridge and simply said “I will.”

World Builder Express – First link: Starting points

Most authors, when they build fantastic new worlds, be it for a story or a game, usually start with a cornerstone that influences what kind of world it is. In some cases it can be a person, it could be an object, but it usually is a country or region of the entire world or universe. The following examples are of the fantastic fictions [Fantasy & Science Fiction, Called that long before I have, because the stories were so far out of our own world that they are in realms of the awe inspiring, unless the world is generic as all get out]. For speed and internet convenience, any footnote will show up in brackets [like this].

FlashPan Reviews: Super Mario 63

Mario is a pop culture Stand by that sometimes had the problem of sometimes sucking often with good reason but you think that Nintendo needs to give him a break. [Wait, what was that? Ooh right this a review of a flash game? Oops, my bad!]

A. N. #10: The Search for the Faux Taxmen, part 2

It took Poul a while to cross Aust to where the party was. Along the way, he was told when he dropped off his horse at the city guards’ stables that they were in a temple and had two officers with them. As the temple came into view he recognized a member of his party. “Hey Bo,” He said. “Having luck so far or is Entrails just not picking up the scent?”
Bojingles was the party’s resident ranger and wildlife trainer. Her wolf Entrails reminded Poul of a character from a Canadian police procedural he once saw, only as if that were the puppy size. Her reply was not promising “No, we thought we had it, but our trail was a bit old. Priam is inside with Bazam talking to the priests, and Viathon is out on the search, as is Radagast. Is there a reason why you did not get up with the rest of us this morning?”
“I said I was exhausted, I spent most of my bag of tricks last night protecting what we all thought of as the right people. So did you, so did everybody else. Sorry, I’m a little on edge but I haven’t had anything to eat today, so I’m not so happy. I’m also alarmed that I am the only one that has ever heard of travel documents. So what I am going to do now is take out some trail mix and jerky to feed myself. Yes Entrails, I have a snack for you too.”
The silent observer wuffled. He may be trained as a battle wolf, but Poul knew the canine liked the attention, Entrails was after all a pup.

Time & Classes

I Said in my first post that there will become times of that old ghost site feel.  I am not dead, just busy with classwork. In adition, I am making progress to the RPG Reports.  It’s all behind the scene as WordPress usually is. I still have things to add, but I get to ad stuuf, okay officially said too much.

The Fifth Year Revision & the One Year Review

About a year ago some of my friends wanted to see how bad 4th edition was going to be. After all we were enjoying 3.5 so what’s the point of releasing a new edition after only five years, what couldn’t wait two years before they released it? For those of you like me that found the level of detail that was in the 3rd editions was all of a sudden truncated. Needless to say I was a bit miffed. If you are wondering why it took me a year to review three books, then you are obviously missing the point. This is a review of 4e as a whole, not just the core rules. the first adventure that we played was shadowfell, and were impressed with the quality of the adventure. Not only did it have the entire adventure, but you could still use the encounter maps in further adventures. It also help set the tone of the regular campaign world, not fully explored, but still fun. The only set back from the modules is that they are more roll than role. Then the accessories started to roll in, to help build up the fledgling edition. Strike three, right? Wrong, the additional material is what the books were missing. and now it time for the online component. Until recently the websites for all of WOTC games were more like a tail on a gorilla. they wanted to start changing that. and so to get set for the real thing, they started with an open beta to see if it was worth it. And they managed to get their act together, at least for the website. (*to off camera* this review should be almost done right? the program suite isn’t yet. oh yeah right the character builder.) Moving on to the Character Builder for those of you were hoping that the the CB would not be another etools, have a cookie. when th open beta came out for the program I gave a try to my suprise, not only did have the content from the books, and online, but you could add your own stuff, provided that there were some examples were already available. and if that wasn’t enough, the power cards that came with the printed version of the character sheet (fully editable, just in case you like to say use real dice to role stats as opposed to the random number generators in the product) could show all the bonus to the attack and damage rolls for that power. the reason that it is titled the one year review was because unlike the MMOs that this version feels like, It takes time to come up with books of content, and to make sure that it dovetails in with what’s already out there. the other thing that kind of irked me at the beginning was that it was so balanced that the mere adding of an unplaytested Magic item radically shifts the ballance out of whack. the example is Rod of Deadly casting. Say you’re a lvl 2 warlock, and you crit on Curse of the Dark Dream on a boss that you already gave your warlocks curse. the rod says that every time you roll 10 on the d10 per plus, you keep that 34 points to damage and roll again, ad nauseum. Making it really easy for your character to turn even a red dragon into dust.  Soasyou can sone item can make a difference, but not in a terribly safe way for the DM. That is it the review is done!

Does Maya count?

I have some experience with the CGI program, but the main reason to use it is so that what ever program I use in the field, and the program is frustrating sometimes beyond belief.