Ragitsu

Sorry: the description on the card has already been forgotten.

Darkness is all about concealment and confusion: ignorance is very much the name of the game. Inversely, the light is pure unvarnished awareness: you know where you are and you know everything else knows where you are as well. Because one's sense of vision is at the height of its acuity in broad daylight, horrors that manage to surprise us when the sun is unobstructed are extra effective than those lurking in a patch of shadow. As you said, the setup has to be executed just right for it to work properly...but the payoff? It is nothing short of fantastic.

A hen in the foxhouse. --- --- ---

A business card for a group calling themselves "MAGAM" appeared in the mailbox.

Usually, in fiction (and real life, to an extent), a lengthy name/title is indicative of influence if not outright station. However...what if the opposite were true? What if you - a commoner - are born into a long name and can only shorten this designation by ascending the social strata? Bobalethoga Macrathiss the Second of the Granite Plains -> Bob (the king).

The Buffett is closed?

Vehemence speaks volumes.

Think of it this way: Caldwell was a Colonel and he was a career military man. He was an old Colonel. He had yet to make it to Brigadier General. Even after all his great Commanding of the Daedalus through multiple events and battles he has still yet to be recognized as deserving of a promotion to General. Politically speaking, the Daedalus was old NEWS. Meanwhile, Atlantis was constantly pumping out new discovered advanced alien technology. Politically. that would be a great place for recognition and his promotion. Then we consider that he did not like the manner in which Atlantis, humanity's greatest hope of advancement, was being run and put at what he saw as unnecessary risk. He could take over at Atlantis and have it running smoothly to the point where is was a cushy job full of recognition and promotions where he could ride out his remaining years until retirement. This is important, because a Colonel (at the time) only made $4000 a month when retired, but: Brigadier General = $4800 a month. Major General = $5,500 a month. Lieutenant General = $5,870 a month. General = $6,650 a month. These retirement estimates are important because in reality a Colonel could not take Active Command of an entire base, only temporary Command. Because a stronger contingent was being sent to Atlantis it would soon become a permanent base instead of an outpost. By becoming the military Commander at Atlantis Caldwell would already be guaranteed the promotion to Brigadier General and easily make Major General in a year. If things went well, he would pass Lieutenant General and make General before another 2 years. And we now circle back to what he saw as mismanagement of the Atlantis base. Caldwell was a career military man but he saw and described himself as "always being a career military strategist". This means that his greatest drive was to build Command infrastructure and plan for contingencies and outthink the enemy. Atlantis Command position would allow him to do this while also allowing him to utilize the greatest technology and tools the galaxy had ever seen. In short, there was a myriad of reasons why he would want to take Command of Atlantis instead of risking his life on the Daedalus for no recognition and his hands tied and probably dying in a tin can in space.

Kavanagh

Phrases pip someone at the post — defeat someone at the last moment. "I was pipped at the post in the men's finals"

I've played DnD tabletop since 1993. I think most of your points about what is a good RPG story are good, but the way I see it the problem is much deeper. Started when WOTC bought TSR. They focus less on novel based content and more to overpower high fantasy stories. Faerun has became a world where you can't walk 5 miles without some espetacular world changing event happens and the way I see it this is just bad writing. If in the past the references for DMing and creating an world/adventure campaign were classics like Lord of the ring, Dracula, The Sword of Shannara, The Arabian Nights and many others, nowdays is a mix between Micheal Bay, Marvel or any other overpowered nonsense story with a medieval high fantasy theme. But A LOT of people like and buy it. The good old RPG still lives in the books from TSR, and for a tabletop point of view, there is so much content that you don't need anything new to have som old good fun with it.