tkdguy

I wrote up the Knights of Tuath spells last night...5 of them, all sensory in nature, I figure those types of spells would help them perform their tasks.  I also did their package deal...it's modest but offers lots of flexibility.
 
I added a couple of new Blood magic spells while I was on the spell kick...Sense Breach, Sense Mythic Creature, and Tenacity.
 
I'm going to focus on writing up NYC for a bit and then I should be done in terms of things I wanted to accomplish.

"Total solar eclipses are a strange cosmic coincidence and a remarkable, awe-inspiring experience. But they are also a profound reminder that when the emotions, money and politics are stripped away, none of us, at our core, are science deniers." ~Bryan Gaensler

I had scones today as mother was out and got some.

Bunch of these. This one's my favorite so far:
 
 

To be able to pee in urinals, I used to have to imagine that I was urinating on someone's face.  Usually the guy next to me, who I resented simply for being there.  Now I can proudly say that I can pee anywhere at any time.  In meetings.  On stage.  During sex.  I may not have tested all of these scenarios, but that's where my confidence level is.

The April, 2019 issue of Scientific American has an article about experiments to detect quantum gravitational effects. The great difficulty here is that quantum gravity is expected to operate on the Planck scale, which is so small that a particle accelerator would need to be the size of the Milky Way to access the necessary energies. But some physicists think there might be clever ways to detect quantum gravity effects propagating up to larger scales. (The analogy given is how Brownian motion of tiny particles in water reveals the jiggling of the much smaller atoms.) So these physicists are working on experiments to measure very, very small gravitational effects -- like, the gravity between millimeter-sized spheres of gold or diamond. (Why these substances? The way they conduct heat prevents theremal variations from swamping the gravitational effects.) With sufficient precision, it might be possible to measure gravitational versions of quantum superposition and entanglement between the teeny-weeny test objects. Instead of an apparatus the size of a galaxy, the whole experiment might fit on a table top.
 
It's a long shot, but nobody has anything better. The article notes that there are actually several theories of quantum gravity. Playing with math is relatively easy. The greater challenge is coming up with experiments to test the theories.
 
Dean Shomshak

Probably a bunch of nerd stuff.
 
Which is cool, because I'm a nerd.

Succinct description of my apartment.

Fantasy Hero Basic_6thed.pdf
 
Hi Brian.
 
I've uploaded my beginners guide for fantasy hero.
 
Feel free to use any, all, or none of it for your own group.
 
Cheers.

Nope, SPD 1 has always moved on segment 7.  
 
What they did in 5th and 6th editions was physically flipped the Speed Chart by 90 degrees (edit) and mirrored (or, technically, mirror flipped along an axis going from the top-left to bottom-right corners).  Up through 4th edition, you found your SPD on the top and looked down to find your Phases.  Now you find your SPD on the left and look across for your Phases, the way you'd expect.  
 
Nothing has changed about which SPD moves on what Phases.
 
Edited to add the chart from 3rd edition.

The key power of higher speed is in acting on other phases which most characters do not.  If you look at the speed chart, many phases are like "greatest hits" and get a lot of action.  Everyone moves on 12, of course -- or, at least they used to until 6th edition (which makes for a really weird anomaly in the progression of turns.  With this system speed 1 gets effectively 2 actions in the first 12 segments -- a turn -- then nothing for another 11 segments.  So its phase 0 (everyone acts), then 7, then... 7 next turn.  Anyway...

But look at the chart and you see some outliers.  Phase 6 for example has tons of action.  4 and 8 are the next most active phases.  So if you can move before those phases or you use saved phases tactically that can be a very useful advantage.
 
Until speed 7, nobody moves on phase 7 (ignoring speed 1 which is basically meaningless to the discussion because its so slow).  That's a scary phase, and it means someone is really really fast.  And Speed 7 is the first speed that moves on phase 11.  Further, look at speed 7 again; its the first speed where you get back-to-back phases of action.  Its like getting free held phases.  Frankly 7 is powerful enough for speedsters to dominate fights without needing to go any faster.
 
Honestly the more you study this chart, the more the genius shows.  It was probably not intentional but it worked out really well.  Mathematically they are split up across the turn as evenly as possible (and 12 gives the best number of possible even divisions).  But for the first few steps (the range most often encountered in Heroic games) the differences are most elegant.  From speed 3 to 5, each higher speed moves a segment before the previous speed in almost every phase.  So you have a slight edge showing greater training but not absurdly fast like phase 6 or something.
 
 

For Lent

Coconut-Chocolate Icebox Cake with Toasted Almonds

Swimming back across the harbor I realized I was being shadowed by a large great white shark that was swimming directly beneath me.  Fortunately it left me alone until I could reach the other side and haul myself out of the water.  It kept following me as I walked along the drainage canal behind some houses, but then it abruptly turned.  Wondering why it had done so, I went back after it.  Turns out a whale carcass had floated up from the harbor against the canal entrance, blocking it.  The shark began to feed, joining a truly massive shark the size of a car that was already there.  A couple of scuba divers were playing around on the carcass, laughing as the sharks fed on it.  One of the divers fell into the carcass through a rent in the blubber, and he laughed at how gross it was.  Then the giant shark bit down about where his legs were and he stopped laughing.  Instead he said "Ow," and tried to leglessly swim away, but the giant shark wolfed him down with another bite or two.
 
Stayed awake for a while after this one.

Black salt farts

I sometimes have dreams about watching strange constellations that don't exist in the real world. I haven't had one in a while until last night.
 
I had this telescope that seemed to come in a pair of tubes. However, you could use them one at a time. I was setting up the telescope with a woman. I told her I haven't gone stargazing in a while. I saw a constellation I hadn't observed to often, so I picked a spot with a lot of stars and looked through the telescope.
 
The stars I saw through the lens made an outline of a menacing face. Although there didn't seem to be a snake motif, I decided this was supposed to be Medusa.
 
The dream ended like that, but that's not the end of the story.
 
Of course, I looked up Medusa on my phone, while I waiting for the train. Before work, I made a side trip to buy my monthly train pass. On the way back, I noticed a salon with this logo:
 

You should paint your kobold miniatures cobalt blue and your ogre miniatures yellow ochre.*
 
 
* Or red ochre, if you're into that sort of thing!

Here's an MMA writeup I did using custom martial arts maneuvers:
 
Cost    
    Mixed Martial Arts
4    1)  Choke Hold:  1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +0 DCV, Grab One Limb; 2d6 NND
5    2)  Defensive Block:  1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, +3 DCV, Block, Abort
3    3)  Double Leg Takedown:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, -1 DCV, 3d6 Strike, Target Falls
5    4)  Escaping Throw:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +0 DCV,  25 STR , to Escape, Target Falls
3    5)  Grappling:  1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, -1 DCV, Grab Two Limbs, 20 STR for holding on
5    6)  Ground N' Pound:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, -2 DCV,  6d6, Strike, Must Follow Takedown
5    7)  Low Kick/Knee Strike:  1/2 Phase, +1 OCV, -2 DCV, 6d6 Strike
4   ? Punch/Elbow Strike:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +0 DCV, 4d6 Strike
4    9)  Reversal:  var Phase, -1 OCV, -2 DCV, 25 STR to Escape; Grab Two Limbs
5    10) Roundhouse/Spin Kick:  1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +1 DCV, 6d6 Strike
3    11) Sacrifice Throw:  1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +1 DCV, 2d6 Strike; You Fall, Target Falls
4    12) The Sprawl:  1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +0 DCV,  25 STR , to resist Throws, Block, Abort
 
MMA.hdp

Almost all of the PCs were SPD 3.  One was SPD 4 (the martial arts expert) and the mooks were all SPD 2.  I used extremely abbreviated stats for the mooks; DEX 11, SPD 2, OCV 4, DCV 4, 17 STUN to stun them, three hits to take down, and any hits to the head, stomach, or vitals counted as two of those; there were few enough of them that I kept track of hits against them mentally with no trouble.  They had rifles doing 1 1/2d6 Killing, with +2 OCV, and no DEF.  
 
I gave each of the PCs an M-16 (2d6-1K, +2 OCV, -1/5" RMod), a .45 Colt Government model pistol 1d6+1K, +1 STUNx, +0 OCV, -1/3", 7 shots), and let them choose any other weapons they wanted.  They had 5 DEF body armor as well.  One (the old school DI player) swapped his M-16 out for an M-14.  A number of the other players chose knives as well.  Two of the players tried to take on the mooks with their silenced .45s; theirs were the only ones left standing, even with the mooks not having any DEF.  Neither of them got more than two hits on their targets, and they were low damage rolls in extremities.  
 
I used hit locations, which everyone seemed to enjoy.  Several of them also enjoyed the fact that it was straight military action, which was different from most of the games that are out there.  There were no head shots, two vitals shots (which I assumed were internal organs -- arteries and such, rather than what we always used to giggle at back in the day), a number of chest, stomach, and shoulder hits, and a number of arm and leg hits as well.