DShomshak

Now UI must include the Forbidden Bidet in my Fantasy game. Dean Shomshak

I know there has been a contingent on the Far Left that believes the CIA and the oil companies conspire to cause every evil thing in the world, but I could not venture a guess how large a contingent it is. I prefer not to guess; I want data. I would agree that the exaggerated view of American influence is subtly narcissistic, in that it presents the rest of the world as helpless and clueless to resist America's malignant power. I presume the US tries to influence policy in other countries, whether allied, hostile, or neutral, through both regular diplomatic channels and covertly. I presume other governments do the same, from Israel lobbying Congress to Russian troll farms. And I don't see anything wrong with that, in the same way that I don't see anything wrong with the danger of infections or falling heavy objects: They are facts of existence, one should take reasonable precautions to avoid being harmed by them, but being upset by them is pointless. I could wish the US government were better at such meddling, as the well known cases tend to be train-wreck failures or have been ultimately disastrous for the countries involved and, in the longer term, for the US itself. "Better" both in terms of competence and choice of goals. Of course, the most successful intervention would never be known to the public. I would rarely if ever say I am "proud" of the US, but I do quite like that it is doing so much to help Ukraine against Russia, and so effectively. I am also pleased that it does not act alone in this. I approve the purpose; I approve the methods (to the extent that I know them); and I think it will benefit the US, its democratic allies, and -- in the long run -- humanity as a whole. Dean Shomshak

Addendum: One player says a 'Time Out' Chair of Shame is insufficient. He needs a full-on Dice Jail. This Etsy page shows a few examples (though I also like the chair with the tiny dunce cap, and the Gelatinous Cube dice box): https://www.etsy.com/market/dnd_dice_jail Dean Shomshak

I play with a few people who could really use this. Dean Shomshak

On my evening walk to stretch my legs, I heard a bunch of seals barking out on Cutts Island. My sister did a little research online and found the spit tgrailing off it is a favorite haul-out spot for harbor seals. Dean Shomshak

This is the first I ever heard of Joel, but now I wish I could have known him too. My deepest condolences. Dean Shomshak

Happy Birthday! Dean Shomshak

I am fairly confident this guy Vopson is a crackpot. Any scientifically literate person can figure out that his apparatus would need detectors made of pure atmpospherium, and his planned budget isn't nearly large enough to cover that expense. A little more seriously... I followed the link back to Vopson's article in some e-periodical called "The Conversation," and was not impressed. The "arguments" for a simulated universe are based on wooly analogies that really aren't that analogous. His plan to test his "Mass/Energy/Information Principle" by annihilating electrons and positrons also seems a little... well, little. Physicists have been measuring electron-positron collisions for decades. I would ask Vopson what he expects to find with his planned tabletop apparatus that CERN, Fermilab, Brookhaven and other labs missed. So I smell a crackpot or a con. Still, it could be a good supervillain origin. A radical theory, self-funding a homemade apparatus because the mocking tongues of the Academy make regular funding impossible, the potential to rip a hole in reality itself... classic. Dean Shomshak

The latest Economist offers the same three items on its wish list for the lame duck Congress, and adds a few. Their editorial is specifically addressed to Senate Republicans, since at least 10 are needed to advance legislation. 1) Permanent residency for the Dreamers. "Some Dreamers are entering middle age. Do Senate Republicans want to keep up the pretense that they may one day be deported? And if so, where to?" 2) Fund Ukraine's war effort. "Vladimir Putin's strategy is to wait out the West, and bomb and freeze Ukraine into submission. Ukraine needs to kow that its Western allies have more patience than Mr Putin thinks they do." The tens of vbillions asked are enormous for most countries, but small compared to the total Pentagon budget. 3) Reform the Electoral Count Act. "Plenty of Senate Republicans have expressed support." So put your public votes where your private opinions are. 4) Raise the debt ceiling until the next presidential election is over. "A sovereign default would crash the world economy and make America poorer and weaker... Better not to pretend it is an option." 5) "Reform permitting laws to make it easier to build new green-energy projects (including nuclear ones) and new electric grids." The newspaper claims that environmental permitting rules can delay such projects for decades, when the whole sector is poised to surge right now to the benefit of the US economy and the global environment. I don't know if that's true; but if it is then yeah, environmentalists may need to a ccept some trade-offs. "One of the heartening outcomes of the midterm elections is that the extremes did badly. Democratic candidates ditched ideas like defunding the police and were rewarded for their moderation. Our analysis of the results found that candidates backed by Mr Trump did about five points worse than they would have without his endorsement, and election deniers did even worse. This is a good moment to turn the assertion of the moderate centre into a legislative programme." [Personal addendum: The five-points-worse result could be because candidates who sought Trump's endorsement tended to be more wackadoodle than other Republicans, and it turns out that many voters do not actually want wackadoodles in Congress. Though alas, not enough.] Dean Shomshak

But what's a super-team without a brick? Several superheroes have fought super-strong, nigh-invulnerable women of diverse appearance, costumes, and pseudonyms. These battles have caused lots, I mean lots of property damage. Factories and businesses have had to shut down because they didn't have insurance against super-battles. Sometimes the female villain got away, though ususally without whatever she came to steal; sometimes she was captured, but another villain teleported her out of jail. (Thank you Bail, here's your tip.) Heroes have not yet realized that all these super-strong female villains are the same woman, variously disguised; nor that the crimes she committed, or tried to commit, were blinds and often the real goal was the property damage. One way Force Majeure can destroy a client's rival is to stage a super-battle. Even sneakier, the group can benefit a client by staging a super-battle on property that is insured -- whether to destroy evidence of other misdeeds, or just to collect the insurance money. The woman's real code name within Force Majeure? Indemnity. (PS: Another way to profit from super-battles? Short-selling. The process is a little too involved to go into here, but suffice to say there's a way to turn a profit on a stock whose value drops. Unexpected and massive property damage can send the value of a company's stock tumbling. Somebody who knows it was going to happen can make a killing. Force Majeure uses shell companies to profit in this way from companies it attacks, whether from Indemnity's battles, scandals rigged by Corpus Delicti, thefts by De Minimis, other damage by Burakku Kigyo, or just rumors spread by the Litigant. They make at least as much money this way as they get from their clients, and it may indeed be their true "business model.") Dean Shomshak Oh, is that six? I don't have another team theme at the moment but I know Bolo does, so I pass in favor of him. Take it away, Bolo! Dean Shomshak

Corpus Delicti, or "C. D." for short, is an actual ghost. The team's support staff tell a story that in life he was the crookedest of crooked Mob lawyers. Heaven wouldn't take him, for obvious reasons, and the Devil was scared to let him into Hell. While C. D.'s's ability to go anywhere invisibly and intangibly has great use, his particular specialty is possessing and animating corpses -- the only way he can affect anything solid. One of his favorite ways of tying up an enemy of a client is to animate someone recently dead (if necessary, other members of Force Majeure kill someone), walk the dead person into the target's home or business, then vacate the body to leave an inconvenient corpse for the target to explain. For extra artistry he might shoot his host body with the target's gun, or leave the nude corpse of a strangled person in the target's bed. Then let police and prosecutors do their work. Even if a murder case won't stick, the target will be kept too busy to oppose Force Majeure's client. If Corpus Delicti needs to pose as a living person (and the team can obtain a fresh enough cadaver for this), he sometimes uses the pseudonymous surname of "Mortmain." Dean Shomshak

dmjalund beat me to it, but to explicate further: Cyclops' eye beams don't work anything like, say, a medusa's petrifying gaze. If Cyclops can see you, he can strike you with his eye-beams. In Champions terms, it's just a Blast (though his OCV is likely quite high). But a medusa's "gaze attack" is misleadingly named. To affect you, you have to see her eyes. If you're blind, you're immune. The HERO System Bestiary (using the more generic "gorgon" -- Medusa was the personal name of one of three sisters, the Gorgones) writes up this power as a Transform, requiring the medusa to make an attack roll, with the Limitation "Eye Contact Required": A target can avoid the attack by averting eyes, only looking at the gorgon in a mirror, etc -- requiring an EGO roll every Phase to keep watching the reflection instead of looking at the gorgon herself, and suffering a -3 OCV penalty as a result. If you have some way to target the gorgon nonvisually -- say, bat sonar -- just close your eyes and you're immune while suffering no penalty at all. A more point-heavy write-up would make the petrifying power Continuous and Area Effect, to represent how the gorgon/medusa doesn't have to make an attack or use her Phase to turn you to stone. As long as you are in range and can see her eyes, you can be affected. The primary defense is still "Don't see her." If you don't want any ad-hoc rule about averting eyes or using a mirror while you fight, just use the standard rules about fighting an opponent you can't see. If you want a specific Power, "Gaze Attacks Don't Affect Me," you can resist a medusa's petrifying gaze with Power Defense. This will also work against other "gaze" attacks that are defined as Drains or NND/AVAD attacks versus Power Defense. If an attack is defined with some other Power as the defense, too bad. (For instance, imagine a Plague Demon that makes you sick if you see its eyes. You could represent this as a Drain, but also as a NND Blast or KA with Life Support: Immunity to Disease as the defense.) If you want to create a spell or other Power that unconditionally defends against all gaze attacks, well, if you're the GM you have to set a "world rule" that all gaze attacks must operate vs. Power Defense; or at least include that as a valid alternate defense. If you're the player, you have to negotiate with your GM, and possibly accept that in this setting there might not be such a universal defense. It's averting your eyes, nonvisual targeting, or case-by-case defense (e.g., Power Defense against the medusa, LS: Disease Immunity against the plague demon). Dean Shomshak

Wow, if that list only goes through 2015 it's hard to believe any concept hasn't been done already, but I'll try. Force Majeure is a team of mercenary villains that evil tycoons and corporations hire as criminal fixers and arrangers. Member names all refer to legal terms, though members don't need to have backgrounds as lawyers. (Might be good if the team leader did, though.) Six members sounds about right. All origin types allowed. Dean Shomshak

Oh, right. A moment, please, this takes some thought. Has someone kept a list of Villain Theme Teams already done? Dean Shomshak

Oh, hey, I was just revising the character sheets of a villainous couple who'd fit the Sweethearts. Might as well share 'em... David and Marsha Stubbs lived in Hanford, Washington State. David worked at the Hanford nuclear facility, making medical drugs and radioisotopes. TGhe pay was good by most standards, but a person of his genius deserved more. He stole drugs and isotopes to sell on the black market. Only his wife Marsha, who taught science at a local high school, was smart enough to really understand him; and David was the only man Marsha ever met with the brains to appreciate her without being jealous of her intelligence. Then David slipped up. He knew the Feds would come for him soon. He packed his stash of radioactives (quite a lot, his contact hadn't shown up for a few months) while Marsha packed everything else they thought valuable, preparing to go on the lam. In his haste, perhaps David fumbled a vial... BOOM! Marsha ran into the fog of radioactive chemicals to rescue David. He was gravely wounded; she had no choice but to call 911. The Feds came with the EMTs. David was decontaminated, more or less, and taken to the hospital under armed guard. When the Feds tried to arrest Marsha and take her from David, though, she began glowing. Bullets bounced off her aura; she shot back with blasts of nuclear radiation. Marsha, now the villain Reactor, returned a month later to rescue David. He was a paraplegic, and never recovered from radiation poisoning, but they still loved each other. David found that being crippled concentrated his mind wonderfully, though. For a few years, he built increasingly advanced gadgets (often radiological or chemical) to help his wife. Then he built his flying, plasma-propelled hoverchair and revealed that he also gained super=powers from the accident. He gaine atomic psychokinesis, the power to manipulate matter at the atomic and subatomic scale, from setting things on fire to outright disintegration. The circuits in the chair enabled him to perform multiple feats at once, including generating a powerful force field to make up for his physical fragility. Since then he has used the name Exciton and together they became The Covalent Bond. I'm not sure how these couples (and polycule) met, but Covalent Bond has an arrogant, us-against-the-world sense of grievance that would make them easy recruits. Dean Shomshak

Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. I gave up reading Fantasy for a long time because so much of what was on bookstore shelves seemed very been-there-done-that. Fortunately, my local library had Black Sun on audiobook. It sounded especially interesting because I heard an interview in which Roanhorse said she drew inspiration from Pre-Columbian American civilizations, rather than the usual European myths and cultures. (She's Native American; I am not, but I share her boredom with Generic Fantasy Warehouse Quasi-Medieval.) A noble goal does not itself a good book make, but I'd say the execution is worthy of it. The worldbuilding is excellent. Roanhorse shows her setting gradually, so while it's exotic it's never overwhelming. Most importantly, it's a good story about interesting characters. It rotates through four viewpoint characters, all of whom I found sympathetic in their own ways. There's a female ship's captain whose not-quite-human heritage makes her the target of both greed and fear; she also has a self-destructive streak. She's rescued from jail to ttransport a blind young man to the holy city of Tova before the winter solstice, which this year coincides with a solar eclipse. He carries a god within him; his mission is vengeance for a great crime committed against his mother's people a generation before. In Tova, woman who rose from the lowest of low estates to become high priestess of the hierarchy that committed the crime believes they should make amends, but finds danger within the city and within her own order. And a warrior from the clan that suffered the crime comes home to find that his mother, the clan matriarch, was murdered. Their destiny is to converge in Tova beneath the Black Sun. It isn't that simple. The resolution isn't; this is the first book of a trilogy, and I think the situation and story are strong enough to sustain it. I look forward to the sequels. Dean Shomshak

Getting away from the perpetual dumpster fire that is American politics, the November 19, 2022 issue of The Economist has a rather interesting article on what's happening in Indonesia -- as it says, the most important country in the world that one hardly ever hears about. But it's the fourth-most populous country in the world, very large geographically, with large stocks of resources that will become terribly important in coming decades. Its politics are also getting on a more democratic footing while staying out of current superpower rivalries. All in all, a healthy reminder that the rest of the world still exists even when the West isn't looking at it. Dean Shomshak

I've seen this argument elsewhere, too: That McCarthy will have to suck up to even the looniest Republican extremists in order to become and stay Speaker. Note the assumption that he will, and must, hustle for votes only from Republicans. This is not actually a law of nature or imposed by the Constitution. It is at least Constitutionally possible for McCarthy, or any other representative, to put his/her/other name out there and stump for votes from both parties. In this scenario, McCarthy (or whoever) might talk to moderate Democrats and try to sell himself as a centrist candidate, enabling the House to do some actual legislating on issues where strong majorities of Americans agree, cutting out the culture war fringes of both parties. But that would require McCarthy actually to come up with such an agenda. My estimation of his character is that he can't, or won't. And he's said enough that even if he did try, I would not recommend any Democrat to believe him. Dean Shomshak

What's up with the James Webb Space Telescope? The December, 2022 issue of Scientific American features a set of articles about the JWST, with gobs of gorgeous pictures (and a bit of explanation how the pictures were made, given the telescope looks in infrared). Preliminary "deep field" studies already have cosmologists scratching their heads, because they seem to be showing galaxies that are too big and too well developed to exist so early in the universe. However, that article also mentions some possible confounding features. But the Webb also looks at objects nearer to Earth, such as an image of aurorae on Jupiter and methane ice clouds on Neptune. Dean Shomshak

None of my old AD&D campaigns lasted long enough that running modules could even become an issue. (And even then I preferred to design my own dungeons, despite them making no sense whatsoever. But then, the published examples often made no sense whatsoever, either.) When I came back to D&D at 3rd ed, I no longer saw any need for any of the old material. Also, it was primarily a military campaign: There was no opportunity to explore the classic multi-leveled "dungeon," even if I could have thought of a justification for one. My latest, 5e campaign is set in a city built on a low spit of land, in which the classic dungeon is physically impossible. Nobody's missed it. That said, over the years I did borrow a few premises from the old AD&D modules. Most important perhaps was the idea of a ruined lost city hidden in a huge rift, from Dwellers in the Forbidden City, which I lifted as the setting for the penultimate adventure in my 3e campaign. Only it was a city ruled by medusas, they'd rebuilt it a lot after the month of divinely-inflicted earthquakes that destroyed their empire eight centuries before, and was a functioning town. Challenges were mostly political: Instead of rampaging around looting the place, the PCs were trying to obtain a magical key (one of a set, a big campaign McGuffin), and recruiting the medusas to help fight the evil overlord menacing the little kingdom. I've also repeatedly used the idea of an aristocratic family of wizards descended from an Archmage, as seen in Castle Amber -- most often as a background for PCs. Most recently, when a friend ran a D&D 5e adaptation of the Pathfinder module Rise of the Runelords, my PC was Lord Skyron Actinar of Stormkeep, great-grandson of the archmage Actinar. Family motto, "I Hold the Lightning." Skyron was exiled from Stormkeep for offending one of his elders, and was trying to earn his way back. (He did.) The GM made good use of the Actinars as a source of NPCs and side-quests. I recommend the "Arcane Aristocrat Family" as a Shared Origin for use in FH campaigns. Dean Shomshak

I prepared our small Thanksgiving dinner: a couple slabs of turkey breast I cooked in a frying pan, stuffing from a box, canned sweet potatoes, storebought rolls and veggie tray, with storebought pumpkin pie afterward. Not much, but it's just me, my mother, my brother, and one of my sisters. I am thankful that my mother and siblings are all still alive and mentally functional. Dean Shomshak

I admit I haven't followed the Scottish independence movement, so the only policy I've heard suggested to follow "Scoxit" is for Scotland to rejoin the EU. Which is understandable, I guess. But speaking of precedents... One of the arguments I heard for "Scoxit" was that if the UK can leave the EU because it doesn't like being dictated to by Brussels, why shouldn't Scotland leave the UK because it doesn't like being dictated to by London? But then where do you stop? Several months ago, the BBC did a story about people in the Orkneys who feel little love for the rest of Scotland. Suggestions of "Orxit" are probably just the locals having a laugh at the expense of silly southern folk who clearly don't have enough real work to do. Probably. Any further discussion of the merits or demerits of Scottish secession should probably go in the Politics thread. I'm only commenting to bring up the "Orxit" joke. Dean Shomshak

In the CU, it would not be implausible for the dimensional experiments to open a Gate to Babylon. Likely to the facility of a self-storage company in Babylon! But hey, the two companies should be able to work out an agreement. ADDENDUM: Speaking of storage facilities with, hm, unusual clients -- or contents? -- here's the story of Tacoma Elf Storage: The 'Chilling' History of Tacoma’s “Elf” Storage Building - GRIT CITY MAGAZINE Dean Shomshak

Oh, and of course Thalassene has festivals timed with the solstices and quinoxes, because those are natural times to celebrate something-or-other. The Furanian immigrant community celebrates all four, since their religion is sun-centered. There are many Furanians in the neighborhood of Oddmonger, so the Furanian Sun Cake -- glazed golden with saffron and honey -- is a familiar treat for those four days, and popular with non-Furanians as well. The Plenary Empire began among the Yidmiri people, so that pantheon of gods remains popular. The festival day of the Yidmiri war god Sar sees a variety of martial contests. One of the PCs won a local archery contest held as part of the festival. The biggest religious festival of Thalassene's year, though, is the annual Marriage to the Sea in which gthe city renews its covenant with the sea-god Manakel and the local merfolk. Ten young men and ten young women dive into the sea from the Pera Sacra, or Sacred Pier, the holiest shrine to Manakel, and swims a seven-mile race to Treaty Reef. There, the male and female winners make love in the surf with merfolk who won their own contest. Mer and landwalker priests bless the unions; and offspring are born with the magical power to exchange feet and fins, becoming merfolk or landwalker humans as needed. The gift is sometimes inherited, but remains miraculous: "Children of Land and Sea" are unique to Thalassene and the local merfolk tribes. Dean Shomshak

The city of Thalassene is in the Plenary Empire, so the chief secular/political holiday is the anniversary of the reigning Autocrat's ascension to the throne. The biggest to-do in the city is the parade and street fair in Mactown, the district settled by refugees from the Macrine region. So many Macriners arrived at once that Mactown seems more like a transplanted bit of "the old country" than like part of the Plenary Empire, and other Thalasseners sometimes grumble that the Mactowners should decide what country they're in. But the Mactown Ascension Day Parade is the biggest in the city. I'll decide what actually happens as part of the parade when I can arrange to make it part of an adventure. Most of the festivals in Thalassene are religious -- and since the Plenary Empire absorbed many different cultures, each with their own gods, there's usually at least a minor festival going on somewhere. In Vicus Drohasus, another ethnic district. the largest public festival is dedicated to the Ennead, the nine chief gods of Drohashi religion. The idols of the gods are paraded through the streets while people sing the old hymns and play the old music of sistrum, flute and tabor, while waving banners of the Golden Lotus that was the symbol of Drohashi sacred kingship. Every year, the Viltish ambassador Hegetsa -- representative of the theocratic empire that conquered Drohash -- secretly watches the parade and seethes with rage. The sun god Sorath is honored, but to no greater degree than the rest of the Ennead, and not by the rites ordained by the prophet Orvikka. The Drohashi of Thalassene are worse than infidel: They are heretics! Soon, Hegetsa promises herself, they, their city, and their false idols will burn. Dean Shomshak