Friday, October 2, 2015

Story Seed - Letter to Home

Image Source: http://kashivan.deviantart.com/art/Tyrant-of-an-Empty-Land-561939476

My Dearest Lyrinae,

Truly the south is one vast wasteland of ice, snow and the most bitter cold. I am reminded of the vastness of Matheunis or Kataru, though even Matheunis seemed warm by comparison, and Kataru's grasses relieved the eye in the way that the endless snow never can.

I am chilled to my very bones, and even the liberal use of my esoteries seem unable to restore warmth to my flesh. Would that I could have your touch to warm me. I shall keep you in my mind as I continue south, for even if my flesh freezes my spirit will be warm just from your memory.

This land is not without its inhabitants however, though even those who are friendly to wanderers such as I are alien and cold. Most speak in strange tongues I cannot understand, and those who I manage to communicate with ask questions I cannot answer. Though I know how I got here I do not know where here is, and I, for all my studies, have not one idea how the machine that sent me here functions. Perhaps now we know why none have ever exited the Dome of Mysteries that had entered it.

Worst still is the sky at night; the stars are unlike those of our home, and gone is the moon and its mysterious green belt. Instead three misshapen orbs traverse the sky at various speeds. One is swift, crossing so swiftly the sky that it can pass from horizon to horizon twice in a night. Another hangs ever present over the land, night and day both. Truly I am no longer on the world we call home.

My heart breaks at the thought that I may perish here, unable to gaze upon you once more, and worse still that you may never know my fate. If this message should reach you I may never know, but that the cypher still functions gifts me with hope that you may perhaps hear me say these words once more: You are my most beloved, and my heart will be yours until I perish, be it here in this frozen world, or at some distant future time in the warmth of our shared bed.

With love forevermore,
Kallel

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Nuts & Bolts - Some Assembly Required


So ... normally I'd have an awesome topic here ... or at least something think is awesome. Due to a number of factors however I don't have anything finished and ready to post today. Which stinks because I try to be on the ball with this blog as much as possible.

So while I don't have a new column today I do have some potential topics, and I'd like to put out an open call for topic ideas as well. If you really want to see one of these sooner rather than later please let me know in the comments. If you have an idea I haven't covered, or maybe need to revisit please let me know ... in the comments.

Some topics in my bullpen:

  • A discussion of Fronts from Dungeon World
  • A discussion on the idea of granularity in task resolution
  • A discussion on the "fail forward" idea 
  • A column detailing Icons (from 13th Age) for use with Shadow of the Demon Lord's core setting.
  • A column about Extras and how and when to use them in games
  • A column about morality mechanics in games (this one is probably a ways off)
  • A column about eclipses in games (not sure if this will be general or specific to a setting)
  • Some more discussion on time travel
If one or more of those sounds awesome please let me know, and if you have a cool idea I should discuss please let me know. I try to keep things generally generic for all settings and systems, but on occasion I will dive into stuff for games & game systems I play like Cypher System, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and Fantasy AGE/Dragon AGE.

Monday, September 28, 2015

On Account of the Moon

Image Source: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Lunar-Eclipse-Photos-562984297
No story seed today due to jet lag on my part. I might try and make it up for tomorrow though. I did want to talk about the supermoon eclipse last night though. I hope a lot of you folks saw it, as it really was something impressive to see, and won't be around again until 2033.  For me it was my first lunar eclipse, due to timing, location, and weather I'd never had the pleasure of seeing one prior to this.

As I watched, over the course of about an hour, the moon was clouded over with darkness, like a waning moon at high speed.  But then it re-emerged from darkness cast in a reddish color as the bright crescent continued to shrink until finally the whole moon was rust red. Some call this a blood moon.

As I said before this was my first time seeing a lunar eclipse, and it didn't disappoint. Being a supermoon it was already bigger and brighter, and so in its eclipsed state it was still some degree bigger than normal. I couldn't help but think of how this would have been viewed by ancient peoples, or by the denizens of your average fantasy trop RPG world. I'll probably mull this around and maybe do something with this later, but I figured I would make note of it here, and ask people who saw it what they thought.

So, what did you think as you watched the eclipse (present or past)? How do you think such an event would be viewed by less advanced societies?