DShomshak

Six days since my brother tested negative for Covid two days in a row, and none of use caught Covid yet. *Whew.* Dean Shomshak

I admit, I never would have thought to ask, "Why is Pennsylvania so haunted?" Nor Connecticut. Those states just became a lot more interesting. Dean Shomshak

Yes, but that's a game thing separate from what Assault asked. First you work out what halflings are by themselves. Then you work out what they are with other people. It's worth remembering that in LotR, it was an important feature of the world that Men, Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits had pretty much gone their own ways for thousands of years. A few points of contact such as Bree and Dale, but mostly separate. The Fellowship of the Ring was the first endeavor to involve all four races since, well, ever. It was Tolkien's imitators, and especially D&D, that shoved everyone together and nobody was particularly strange to anyone else. Tolkien shaped four distinct races (orcs, too) from a melange of folklore that didn't draw such distinctions among the faerie-folk -- and they were all Hidden Folk, not just the short ones. Nothing decreed that he had to create dwarves, elves, hobbits and orcs as he did, or as gamers have subsequently adapted them. So I repeat: Go back to the source. It might be a useful exercise to reverse-engineer hobbits from the folklore: work out what Tolkien used, and what he was trying to achieve. Then you can probably rebuilt the Sma;ll Folk to suit yourself. Or, you know, don't. If the only reason you're even trying to make halflings "work" for you is that people expect them 'cuz D&D, you probably shouldn't waste your time. You probably won't b e happy with the result; and if you aren't having fun runnin g the game, your players probably won't have fun either. Dean Shomshak

And a bazillion legends from around the world about the small folk who are rarely seen. That's where Tolkien got his hobbits (with a fair bit of his own imagination). Return to the source and do as he did. When I ran my Fantasy Europa alternate-history campaign I didn't get much opportunity to use my version of halflings -- or three versions, really, because I gave them three main cultural divisions. Regular "halflings" had assimilated into human society. Savants are sure they are simply a shorter version of humans. But it's also pretty well established that they are the first folk of Europe. Halflings who didn't assimilate are generally called Picts, Pygmies, Pisgies, or other variations; or Brownies, Bwca, Boggarts, Huldre, Kobolds, or many other names. None of these are what they call themselves. They still live in hiding out in the countryside. Local folk sometimes make tacit bargains with them: The farmer who lets the Hidden Folk glean his fields after the harvest finds fewer foxes getting into the henhouse. Or the reverse can happen. The Hidden Folk have their own ancient religion and mythology, preserving many secrets su ch as from when the elves came, and the Wild Huntsman's true name. But a few of the Hidden Folk strike back against the larger folk who occupy land they still regard as theirs. They are Goblins, the terror in the dark or under the bed, masters of dagger, dart and poison. Up the airy mountain/Down the rushy glen/We daren't go a-hunting/For fear of little men... Like I said, it's an idea I never got the chance to develop much. Maybe I'll get a chance some other time. Dean Shomshak

I followed the link to the original article. The Republican leader of the New Mexico State House condemns Pena, which shows he is not a complete lunatic. (Unlike Pena, who is clearly quite mad.) But considering how early in the campaign the Democratic incumbet pointed out Pena's criminal history (and tried to get him disqualified on those grounds -- a judge then ruled the applicable law was unconstitutional), I would have thought the Republicans could have found someone, *anyone,* to run against Pena in the primary. Or maybe they did; I don't know how New Mexico handles these things. Failed Republican candidate arrested in shootings targeting Democratic politicians' homes - Albuquerque Journal (abqjournal.com) I suppose it is possible that Pena was literally the only person who tried running as an R in that district, and the parties cannot actually forbid people from claiming affiliation when they run. But Pena is a gift for New Mexico Dems that tghey should be able to exploit for at least one more election cycle. Dean Shomshak

Heard on the BBC that scientists have used lasers to trigger and draw lightning strikes. The reporter from Nature spoke of it as a sort of improved lightning rod to protect especially vulnerable facilities, such as rocket launch sites. No mention of stealing the weapon of the gods from their own hands, but still: lasers, to control lightning. Someone, somewhere, is going "Muah ha ha ha!" I can't seem to find a BBC site for the report, but found this story directly from Nature itself. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00080-7 Dean Shomshak

Big Jack Brass beat me to it! But here's a link to the issue and article, if anyone cares. https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine100/page/n75/mode/2up The other article was in issue 117: https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine117/page/n53/mode/2up DRAGON also published the "One in a Million" article by Roger E. Moore, about superbeing populations worldwide, which has guided my setting design ever since. A useful reminder to American Champions GMs about how many people *do not live in the USA.* But they can have heroes and villains too! Dean Shomshak

I think I saw it in DRAGON, decades ago. As Duke says, this would have been for 2nd or 3rd edition, and likely unofficial. I'll check my old issues and see if I can find it. Dean Shomshak

If it matters, lately on BBC and ATC I've heard reports that Poland's government has announced its intent to give German-built Leopard tanks to Ukraine, but needs Germany's permission to do so. Since I don't follow the international arms trade as a rule, this is the first I've heard of such re-export permissions, but I guess it's a thing for some arms systems and some countries. Switzerland may do the same with weapons that it sells, no matter who they are sold to. Dean Shomshak

For a few days now, I'd thought of posting a new team concept since it had been so long since anyone posted, but was too busy with other things. I won't object if anyone has additional members for Second Chance, but I'd ;like to propose the next team. It's the same concept as the PCs in my current campaign, but I'd like to see what other people could make of it in the Champions Universe. In the Superheroic Age, the future faces deadly peril. Forget the official CU timeline with the Alien Wars, Terran Empire, and all that. That's only one possibility. Many of the possibilities are dreadful. Several current supervillains have the potential to end the human race and the world... or inflict horrors without end. Even in those doomed futures, there are heroes -- likewise doomed, because it's too late. But what if someone could go back in time to make sure that future never happened? Enter Captain Chronos! He has rescued six doomed heroes and brought them back to the early 21st century to defeat the villains before they can destroy the world. They are the Avant Guard. Pick the villain who dooms the world. The likes of Doctor Destroyer, Takofanes or Mechanon are easy choices, but hey, if you can think of a way to make Bulldozer a Destroyer of Worlds, great! Give a brief description of the dark future, and then that last hero who's going down fighting before Captain Chronos finds him, her, or it. Dean Shpomshak

Jana's closest friend in Second Chance is Fiona Stewart. She too suffered from an arranged marriage; in her case, as the trophy wife of a wealthy widower financier, Hezechiah Stewart. She tried to be a dutiful wife for the sake of her family. She did not encourage young men who paid her attention; she was faithful in her May-to-November marriage. It didn't matter. Her husband still was insanely jealous. Fortunately, he suffered a stroke in one of his jealous rages and died. Unfortunately, Fiona still wasn't free: Hezechiah's possessive obsession led to him becoming a ghost. (You'll find him in Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies, as The Haunt.) He murdered his wife and made her a ghost, too -- his wife for eternity. That was almost a century ago. Devious circumstances led to Second Chance entering Hezechiah Stewart's long-vacant house. They fought the Haunt, and gave Fiona new hope. She turned on her husband and helped the heroes destroy him. The old house burned. She expected to go to her own eternal reward then, but didn't. She was free for the first time in her... existence. Terrified yet exhilarated, she joined as their latest member (so far,), Ghost Girl. (Fiona is new at this hero name thing.) Dean Shomshak

Oh, I think mutants can be used effectively as a symbol for other anxieties. I just think they don't work very well as an allegory for racism, and only marginally better as an allegory for homophobia. In part this is because allegory is by its nature heavy-handed. Symbols are shiftier. They ask questions but are not so much insist on the answers. For me, the most effectivde symbolic use for mutants is: Our children are not like us. And they have powers we do not comprehend, such as navigating social media on smartphones. (Back in my day it was programming VCRs.) And they will supplant us and take over the world. So how do you feel about that? Some people hind this hopeful. Many people find it terrifying. Dean Shomshak

I am well aware of it. And my critical judgment is that they are not very good at it. That's why I don't like them. I have made this argument before, at considerable length, and do not care to go through it again. Dean Shomshak

The Animated Series was indeed very much like the Original Series, only shorter eps. Sometimes this was good, as when actual SF writers got to write episodes or had previously published stories "Trek-ized." ("Arena" in TOS, "The Slaver Weapon" in TAS.) Sometimes just ridiculous (giant Spock in TAS, an actual duplicate Earth in TOS). Next Generation was a lot more polished and skillful than the Original Series. I think its makers knew more what they were doing and succeeded at it. I do not agree with everything they wanted to do, though. To the good, they worked more at developing characters throughout the series. OTOH I was irritated by the overuse of designated unique characters: Starfleet's only android! And the only Klingon! (Okay, a half-Klingon brought in later, briefly.) Apparently the only guy to wear a super-sensor visor 'cause he's incurably blind otherwise (and a capability that was largely ignored). And a magic super-genius kid, a trope I dislike no matter where it appears. And it was good that TNG tried to develop alien cultures in greater depth. A few of them. But I'm not greatly impressed by the results. OTOH, for all the frequent clumsiness of TOS, with many stories that didn't make a lot of sense, or created problems for future writers ("But in Episode X they found [cool thing], why didn't they use it in Episode Y?") there were many episodes that left me wanting to see people and places again. I would have loved to see whether, and how, the Horta became part of the Federation, or what happened to the androids of Mudd's Planet, or whether the Iotians ever demanded a piece of the Federation's action. But we didn't. At least not in TNG or what I saw of DS( or a very little bit of Voyager. Maybe in subsequent series, but I don't subscribe to streaming services and never will. The only character I think of offhand from TOS whom I wished had turned up again, and didn't, was Ardra, a.k.a. the Devil. But I found most of the planets and people dead boring. But Q was an excellent addition to the setting, as a counter to the cloying niceness of the Organians and the holier-than-thou preachiness of the Metrons. I'm all in for a godlike super-alien who's just a petty, irritating jerk. Or pretends to be. The season finale did suggest the possibility that he had something to teach Picard, and by extension humanity -- but like a Taoist Immortal, he makes you live the lessor instead of preaching a sermon. Star Trek had an almost Gnostic aspect at times, and Q pretty much laid it out in that two-part episode. (DS9 also did well at exploring other cultures, and with a bit more skill than TNG.) Dean Shomshak

Not that anyone here needs help writing up PCs or NPCs, but here's the latest hero I wrote up. I hope to use him as a PC someday. In the meantime, I like the personality (no angst please, we're well rid of the 1990s) and I think the illo turned out well. I hope he may be of use to someone else, too. While my group plays 5e, Rep is written up in both 5e and 6e versions. It was somewhat interesting just seeing where the points shifted around. (And please let me know if I flubbed anything. No man is wise by himself, especially at HERO System accounting and editing.) ADDENDUM: Not quite pure 5th edition. I give the 5e version 75 points of Complications, 6th-ed style, as that's one alteration to the rules of which I thoroughly approve. Rep 6e.pdf Dean Shomshak

<wince> Of course they do. Stupid and Crazy are more contagious than Covid. Dean Shomshak

Doctor Medusa has no super-powers, just her Petrifying Gun that transforms organic matter into, to look at it, white marble. Depending on the gun's setting, the transformation reverses in minutes, hours, or, or apparently never. (Anything inorganic shot by the gun tends to shatter, which is how she breaks into bank vaults and the like.) The Marmoreal Menace has never deliberately used her gun to kill, and Virtuous found a simple way to reverse the transformation, but there have been accidents -- which is part of how Doctor Medusa because wanted by the law and had to turn to a life of (deliberate) crime. Doctor Medusa made no secret of her attraction to Virtuous, and her desire to "collect" him. He'd make a gorgeous statue... though he spontaneously reverses the petrifying effect in mere minutes, regardless of the gun's setting. So her strategy has always been to petrify Virtuous long enough to complete some other crime and get away with no greater harm to him than lipstick on his cheek. In her last caper, though, rumor has it she shot Virtuous just before her partner, another member of the Indecency Brigade, punched him. And knocked him off the edge of the skyscraper whose penthouse apartment they had just robbed. And the hero broke. Scuttlebutt in the underworld is that Doctor Medusa had to be dragged away, while screaming, "I can fix him!" She hasn't been seen since. But some people say that when Doctor Medusa returns to crime, she's going to be crazy. Bad crazy. Dean Shomshak

An interesting editorial here. The pundit makes a good point about how the new Republican party is in some senses making Congress more "democratic," which doesn't sound "authoritarian." But I think the writer misses the point that one can be anti-institutional and still be rabidly authoritarian. The question is where the authority lies. Part of what makes fascism fascist is the lack of due process: Institutions operate by the whim of the leader, the party, or the mob. And from what I can see, the core grievance of MAGATs is that the formal machinery of law and government denies them the cultural dominance they seek, in which people like them can wield arbitrary power over everyone else. In which case, offices stripped of power and institutions in chaos suit them very well. The Kevin McCarthy speaker debacle has a silver lining (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

I've enjoyed Mr Hite's work for years and even had the honor of working with him (briefly, once). Amazing guym great game writer. I am appalled that this happened to him, but relieved it isn't worse. Dean Shomshak

I don't do Champions Universe. I don't like the "Mutant Hater" trope. I will never buy this book. But a good review, and it sounds like a well written book. Given that bigotry is fungible, though, it would probably be easy to cross out "mutant" and write in some other group, such as "Magic" "aliens," or "mentalists," and the book would work nearly as well. Dean Shomshak

<Deleted; thought better of the idea. Carry on.>

From what I've heard on All Things Considered... mixed. Recent storms have laid down a fair bit of snowpack in the Cascades, which will be good next summer. But the Southwest has been parching for years, even decades. Most of the water from storms just runs off; a few storms won't replenish the diminished snowpack enough to keep the Colorado and other rivers running and refill the reservoirs. It would take years of such weather to restore the status quo ante... which climatologists say *will not happen.* White settlement in the Southwest happened in an unusually moist century or two. That period appears to be over, even without global warming making it worse. Dean Shomshak

1) AUTHOR: Lois McMaster Bujold 2) BOOK: A Civil Campaign is my literary comfort food. Funny, and a great example of exploring the second- and third-order effects of a technology. 3) COMIC: Have not seen any, and I don't count superhero comics 4) MOVIE: Kafka (I think it qualifies) 5) MOVIE POSTER: The Quiet Earth 6) TV SERIES: Tough choice between Babylon-5 or Firefly 7) ARTIST: Michael Whelan, but only because he's one of the few I know about. I will look up some of the names mentioned in this thread. And I too have a soft spot in my heart for Plan Nine from Outer Space. As Scarecrow Video says of Ed Wood, he might have made decent movies if only he'd had more money and more talent. He still managed one of my favorite SF movie lines: "Because you Earth people are stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" (Or something like that. I don't guarantee I remember the exact phrasing.) Dean Shomshak

Today, Explained discusses the e;ection of George Santos; why nobody noticed (until too late) that he is almost entirely fictional; what can be done now (probably nothing, unless something turns up now that people are following the money); and what it means for American politics going forward. https://www.stitcher.com/show/today-explained/episode/the-many-lies-of-george-santos-210502804 My guess is that Republican strategists are already prepping additional fictional candidates to flip seats in 2024. It's not clear that *any* amount of lying about oneself is a criminal act in running for office, or forces removal once the votes are cast. So, work out which candidate would attract votes the best, recruit an actor to play that role, and fake up some documentation if you think it's necessary. Once butt is in Congressional seat, who cares if the fraud is discovered? One can do a lot in two years. Democrats, as usual, will be completely outflanked, bewildered, and impotently outraged once they figure out what happened. Dean Shomshak

Since one of the GOP Reps said on the radio today that they *must* shut down the government at the first opportunity in order to Save America from the Biden Agenda, it sounds like the Freedom Caucus is well on its way to implementing its own agenda. Which, as the WaPo pundit who was also interviewed put it, is to "blow things up." He thought they didn't really have policies; IMO he failed to see that anarchy is a policy. (Of a sort.) Dean Shomshak