What's my Motivation?

For those times you need a pick-me-up, we present RPG Motivational Posters! The ones you see here are just a couple of the many choices you can use to boost your party's morale!

Death, Where is Thy Sting?

Ok, so I died over the weekend.
Unless you are a believer in the supernatural (which I am not), it must be obvious that I am referring to my character: R.I.P. Ardric, 3rd-level Dwarf Knight.

So, how am I supposed to feel about this, I wondered. He was my stout, brave (or foolish, depending on your perspective), battle-hardened alter ego. I had never died before (not a Buddhist, either), so I wasn't sure how to move on.

I've died before, but it was a long time ago: In the '80s, I played Traveller with a bunch of my pals. I originally was playing a Vargr, essentially a human-sized dog, or a werewolf without the were part, if you will. I played him as just another character. That is, until we actually got the books we needed in the first place, and discovered that the Vargr were treacherous and opportunistic. So, I went with it.

It took all of 15 minutes to get fragged by my fellow players. I deserved it, and I provoked it. Self-inflicted, for all intents and purposes.

So, I became a Zhodani, one of the tall, thin telepaths with amazing abilities like teleporting, etc. This guy stuck around for a while - he was useful, as a telepath would be. We spent over a year trying to get to the heart of a criminal conspiracy involving a group called Blackthorne's Blackhearts. Of course by criminal I mean legitimate, and by conspiracy I mean lawful authority, but that's neither here nor there.

At the end, we ended up in chains on the floor of his 'throne room'. I was pretty angry, and , since we were likely to die anyway, I teleported into the same space he currently occupied. Messy, yes. Surprising? You betcha. But not involuntary.

Since my re-intro to D&D, I've played a couple of characters: Max, a Paladin who went off to find spiritual enlightenment, and Diemos, a sorcerer who is still going strong, although currently on vacation (lucky bastard). We started the new game about a month ago, and I decided I wanted to play a knight.

Unfortunately, a brave, noble knight who died of mummy rot. how embarassing. At least I wasn't the only one - our halfling druid bit the dust, too.

I was shocked, I was dismayed. Then, my former-halfling pal and I went somewhere else to create new characters. I'm now a female rogue, both for the first time. Should be interesting. However, in the absence of a period of mourning, I thought I'd share this experience, in the hopes that somewhere, Ardric is hoisting a flagon of ale and swearing revenge on mummies in the next life.

Taken too soon

Ardric Erzgraeber 2006-2006.

If anyone has a spectacular or even an emotional character death story, I'd love to hear it. Together, we can heal...

Be seeing you.

D&D Meets Survivor

Just thought I'd give a shout out to a Webcartoon called 'Endurance Challenge: Mordred's Isle' starring Billy West, the voice of Fry on 'Futurama' - you can see the first episode by clicking on the link above.

Toy of the Week

For those people who don't like these newfangled digital watches and yearn for a simpler, older style the good people at
Think Geek have come through with the ultimate in 'old school' - a Stonehenge Watch. Yes, now you too can tell time the same way your great-many-times-grandfather did. Of course, it only works outdoors, and in the daytime and when you can see the sun, but hey, you can't have everything (Don't worry, there's an analog watch built into the front)

Dragon #346 - A Quick Overview

I've decided to make it a habit of giving my impressions of the latest issues of Dragon when they come out. So, we'll begin with #346, pictured to the right - I'll just give a quick list of the articles, and my impressions of each:

1. Core Beliefs: Pelor: I'm of two minds of this series - the fact that they deal exclusively with the Greyhawk Campaign Deities would make it of limited value to someone who isn't running a campaign set in that world. Nonetheless, it's a nice way of giving a background to that particular deity, and I suppose you can very well adapt it to whatever Sun/Good/Healing Deity you have in your world. It gives some extra spells for clerics of Pelor; a 1st Level Spell called Sun Father's Face that essentially gives you a +4 Bonus on a turn undead/wild empathy check and a 2nd Level Spell called Sunmace which I think is unnecessary, since it's basically Spiritual Weapon, which is the same level, but with the added bonus of extra damage to Undead, personally I would have made it a 3rd Level.
2. Three Dragon Readings: Character Generation Through Fortune Telling: This article allows the DM to adapt the TSR Card Game Three Dragon Ante as a character generation method combining random ability score generation with a point-buy system. This is nice because it allows the DM to scale the power levels of the characters with the difficulty level of a campaign - it also helps to give the players a 'feel' for their characters rather than simply picking numbers out of a dice roll. I really like the idea, although I don't know if it's enough to make me buy the product.
3. Games of Chance: Dice and Card Games for D&D: I like this article - it gives a variety of games of chance that the characters can play in the taverns they frequent during the campaigns, and gives a nice change from the ubiquitous Texas-Hold-Em and Craps games that most DMs seem to use, when they use games of chance at all.
4. Supporting Cast: Following the Leader: For those DMs who use the Leadership feat (DMG, Page 106) in their campaign, this article gives suggestions for followers for each of the various classes, along with a 'bit of a twist' suggestion. Nicely balanced, the suggested followers work well with the abilities of the leading class.
5. Impiltur: The Forgotten Kingdom: I have the same problem with this article that I have with the Core Beliefs article - unless you're playing the Forgotten Realms Campaign, this article will be of limited use to you. If you are, however, it's a valuable reference for an area you probably haven't sent your players into.
6. The Ecology of the Rust Monster: I'm aware that there's some discussion on the Wizards Message Boards on this Monster, so here's my 2cp worth; the majority of the people arguing that the Rust Monster is overpowered seem to be of the opinion that 'nothing bad is supposed to happen to the players' and that to me seems wrong, especially in this case, the fact is that the Rust Monster is fairly easy to defeat from a distance with missiles and/or spells - the only way a fighter is going to suffer serious loss of equipment is if he charges the beast solo without backup and really, why should the DM reward idiotic tactics? Also the idea of a rusting effect that's only temporary seems to me to be kind of silly, as anyone who's ever seen an 80's model car can testify, rust doesn't go away, it's permanent.
7. Class Acts: A mixed bag in this issue; the extra feats and options for scouts are handy for anyone who's picked up Complete Adventurer and wants to play the class, and the Sacred Enforcer seems like a nice way to customize monks for specific deities. The article on Eastern Cataphracts is good if you want to run a campaign set in a specific historical period, or if you want to give a different feel to another culture's cavalry. The article on The Power of Truenames seems to me to be only of use if the DM allows that magic variant from the Tome of Magic.

So that's it for this issue, any discussion/argument is more than welcome.

New DC Films! Huzzah!!

A big h/t to Superhero Hype for the news:

DC Comics--the world's largest English-language publisher of comic books and the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman--Warner Home Video (WHV) and Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) have announced the start of production and distribution of "DC Universe," a series of original, animated PG-13 movies. The announcement was jointly made by Paul Levitz, President, DC Comics; Ron Sanders, President, Warner Home Video and Sander Schwartz, President, Warner Bros. Animation.

WHV will be the exclusive worldwide home entertainment distributor for all DC Universe movies which will include a slate of 2-3 action-packed films per year. To kick off this impressive venture, WHV, WBA and DC Comics are proud to announce the first three films to be released in late 2007/early 2008:


Justice League: New Frontier - written by Stan Berkowitz (Justice League), with Darwyn Cooke serving as story and visual consultant

Superman: Doomsday - produced by Bruce Timm and written by Duane Capizzi, from a story by Timm & Capizzi

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract - written by Marv Wolfman and Tom DeSanto, produced by DeSanto.

Other DC properties with films in development include Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman.

The Scarlet Speedster Returns!

Hey all, I just wanted to drop by and thank Dan for the invite - I think this will be fun. My ridiculously useless knowledge that makes Ms. Flash roll her eyes will finally have an outlet!

Stuff I like, just as examples (not in order):

1) Irwin Allen TV shows - Just got Vol. 2 of The Time Tunnel - good stuff.
2) DC Comics - Hence the screen name. Particularly all incarnations of The Flash.
3) The Prisoner - I am not a number, I am a free man!
4) D&D - Better than I remembered, now I'm hooked.
5) Traveller - If I ever run a game, this will be the one. Again, better, since they switched to the d20 system.
6) Old Sci-Fi TV in general - The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, etc.
7) View-Master - I collect viewers and reels. My latest was the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Also have Trek, Lost in Space, Bonanza, and so on.
8) Richard Matheson's I Am Legend - One of the best Sci-Fi/Horror novels ever. Matheson is by far my favourite writer.
9) Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality

I'm glad to be here, and I hope everyone else will eventually be glad too.

Be Seeing You.

You Know the First Post's Gotta Be About Star Trek

There's a fine line between being a fan and being a fanatic, and I suspect it lies somewhere south of
Tom Pearcy's corn field - the British farmer used satellite technology to create a giant maze in tribute to the 40th anniversary of the show's first episode. The maze uses 1.5 million corn plants and claims to be the largest one of it's kind in the world.
Update: My bad, I misprinted the number of corn plants, it's been corrected to the correct amount

Welcome to the Blog!

Good day and welcome to my blog - as it says above we'll be posting on all things of a geeky nature.