DShomshak

The "evil race" issue is a consequence of the "Gygaxian Naturalism" to which the blogger alludes (and his link leads to an essay that's interesting in its own right). If orcs, goblins, bugbears, etc. are essentially "natural" creatures presumed to have lives of their own when PCs aren't fighting them, modern sensibilities may not be comfortable with saying, "Oh, just kill them and take their stuff." Including killing all the children? Not an issue for, say, the book of Jashua when God tells the Israelites to exterminate entire cities because they are inconveniently located in the land God has promised, but monder Western folk often feel uneasy with genocide. Or the rationalizations adduced to justify it. If the adversary is emphatically *not* an essentially natural creature that has a life and culture of its own, the issues are a bit different. If goblyns are truly mythic monsters, their motives are not going to be natural either, and the moral calculus *might* change as well. So, goblyns as primordial chaos. That can be developed. They might be, in essence, the world pushing back against the order that humans (and gods?) try to impose. Giants as comparable to natural disasters? They might actually *be* personified natural disasters. Why does an earthquake flatten a city, a storm capsize a fleet, a swarm of locusts devour everything and cause a famine? No reason. No malice. It's what they do. OTOH the Norse trolls the blogger cites as inspiration are not always and implacably hostile to gods and heroes. Some of the Aesir are descended from giants, or marry giants. They have power: Odin stole the Mead of Poetry from a giant (who, in turn, extorted it from the dwarfs who brewed it from the god Kvasir's blood, so in a sense Odin was reclaiming stolen property? Complicated.) So it might be possible -- though still dangerous -- to deal with goblyns in non-combat ways. Like, moving from Norse to Russian, the ogre-witch Baba Yaga's usual story role is the reluctant helper: Heroes overcome her to obtain magical treasures. On the other other hand, were goblyns always hostile? Or did something happen to make them that way? Like the conflict between the Hindu Gods and the Asuras, this conflict might go back to before the beginning of the world. (The gods and asuras had to cooperate in churning the primordial ocean of milk to produce the elixir of immortality. The gods cheated the asuras of their share.). But there might have been some historic event that turned the goblyns hostil and, effectively, broke the world. If it's something people did, then maybe people can fix it and restore harmony. For instance, that desert that was burned over in magical war long ago. The devastation could have broken an ancient pact with the goblyns. They are trying to expunge humanity to prevent such destruction from happening again. Or conversely, the devastation might have been inflicted by the giant leaders in retaliation for some terrible offense given to them. Either way, they will not accept an "Oops, sorry, can we be friends again?" But if goblyns are a symptom of the break in the world, and not its ultimate cause, then just killing goblyns might not be an ultimate solution, either. Okay, this has gone way too long. Enough for now, and more than enough. Dean Shomshak

Heard on the radio yesterday that Artemis launched successfully. Dean Shomshak

This has promise. Give more thought to how the world is broken, how it broke, and what PCs can do to fix it. For instance, why are goblyns so hostile? Is there any way peace could be made between them and humans? The desert with the ruined cities is a good location to show the brokenness of the world. Likewise Reuchia and the country withe the backstabbing aristos. To reinforce the exploration theme, include something cool in ever location the PCs visit. Not necessarily anything important, but memorable. Maybe there's something distinctive about the way people adorn their houses, or themselves. Maybe there's some peculiar local tipple -- I've got a lot of use out of that one. If you need inspiration, read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, or pretty much anything by Jack Vance. You can combine these themes through locations that are both interesting to describe, and in some way broken. For instance: A great bridge crosses one of the main rivers. Its three arched spans are longer than humans know how to build, and its stones are larger and heavier than humans could move into position (at least without powerful magic). But tales say humans didn't build the bridge: goblyns did, long ago. The stones are not too heavy for ogres to move, and legend says giants waded the river to build the bridge -- or charmed the blocks into position! But the central span of the bridge is broken. <Insert story about who broke it, and how.> The bridge is wide enough for two elephants to cross, going opposite directions; but people must cross the central gap on rope bridges that can bear the weight of fewer than a dozen people at a time, going single file. Merchant caravans must stop when they reach the bridge, unload all their goods from their wagons and pack animals, and carry them across to where a new set of beasts and animals wait on the other side. (If humans have magic that could build something sturdier, OK, it doesn't make sense to have the rope bridges. But you can still make the patch across the gap clearly inferior to the rest of the bridge.) Dean Shomshak

They have at least two years until their next primary, and in American politics two years is forever. I suppose it's remotely possible that some of the Pub senators genuinely think it's the right thing to do. Or at least that, culturally, the ship sailed so long ago that there is nothing to gain by trying to reverse it and much to lose. It's irrelevant to whatever they really care about. Dean Shomshak

Sounds good. And speaking of one bit you brought up... I am so tired of "Chosen Ones." I prefer my heroes to be fighting the good fight because somebody has to, not because it's their Destiny. I crystallized this view several years ago while watching the Shannara TV series that aired (only one season AFAIK) on MTV. Okay, not a fan of The Sword of Shannara and never felt any reason to read the sequels, but somebody was trying to do Fantasy on TV so I watched it. And I got really irritated by Alanon the druid telling the young hero that it's his Destiny to fight the demon horde and save the world, because he's descended from the last great hero and so is the only person who can activate the power of the Elfstones, yadda yadda yadda. Especially when the material was there for a different approach. Untested Young Hero doesn't want to save the world; he wants to be a doctor, because his mother suffered so much in her final illness. I think the line should have been: "You're probably not the only descendant of Shannara. If I tried, I could probably find a dozen others. But you responded to suffering and grief by wanting to help others. That's special. Other people could use the magic pebbles. You're the one who should use them." Dean Shomshak

EDIYT: Oops, BNakagawa already posted this information. Never mind. Update: On All Things Considered last night, the possibility was raised that the missile that struck a "grain processing facility" in Poland might have been a Ukrainian antimissile, launched in response to the Russian barrage, that went off course. I just hope the investigation is thorough, honest and reported accurately. If it does turn out to be a Ukrainian antimissile, that's not a disaster for Ukraine: Acknowledgement of the accident, apology, and reparation to the families of the victims, shows the government is honest and worthy of trust. Commitment to truth, even when it isn't good for you in the short term, shows strength and confidence to those who are strong and confident; Russian bluster and lies shows weakness and cowardice, that only looks strong to those who are themselves weak and cowardly. Dean Shomshak

As I said, I find it plausible that the strike was an accident. OTOH Putin must not be allowed to think he can make this the start of a nose-in-the-tent strategy. There must be consequences. But I do not envy the people who must decide what those consequences should be. Dean Shomshak

On today's issue of The Daily radio show, the subject is Trump's expected declaration later today that he's running for president in 2024. The reporter delivering analysis called Trump running for president the Hotel California of American politics: You can try to check out, but you can never leave because it just goes on and on. As for the Russian missiles hitting Poland, the BBC reporting and analysis suggests this was likely an accident. There's no strategic logic to bombing a farm on the border of Ukraine, and many reasons not to do so. Either Russian targeting sucks (plausible), or a missile was knocked off course by an antimissile attack. However, Poland has invoked the NATO charter for consultation (not yet for counterattack). The Russian government, of course, insists the whole thing is a NATO hoax. Dean Shomshak

Shadow World. Ah. I acquired one supplement set there, The Iron Wind, back when it was all fairly new, and even then I had, hm, issues with the design stule. Some aspects were an advance for the time, but the state of the art has moved on. (And some bits I intensely disliked.) Sample adventures not using the countries the supplement is about is kind of a flaw by any standards... The biggest question remains what style of campaign you want. Treasure-seeking murder hobos call for different design emphases than a campaign of social and political intrigue, a cold war that threatens to turn hot, High Fantasy quest, or the like. For instance, my current D&D campaign has a nesting series of design choices. Overall, the setting is the Magozoic Era -- Earth 250 million years in the future, become a world of monsters and magic. Everything has a past -- sometimes a very long past, stretching back to legend. Every few days' travel, you encounter some eerie or enigmatic relic of past events, from a forest of living stone trees to a field that lightning strikes every time a storm passes nearby. The city that forms the focus of the campaign is on a spit of land that formed around an immense granite breakwater, so old that coral covered it and turned to stone. It is not the first city to occupy the site, either. Shrinking the focus, everything's happening in the Plenary Empire, modeled a bit on the Byzantine Empire: the shrunken remnant of an empire that was once much larger, menaced by aggressive neighbors that want to complete its fall and take its land, people and wealth. The greater danger, though, may come from the infighting among the empire's elite as they seek to gain greater shares of the empire's wealth and remaining power, or attempt secession because they'd rather be masters of small domains than functionaries in a big one. Politics and war and the themes: I explicitly decided that while the world includes dragons, beholders, liches, demon lords and other such threats, they won't be the principal threats. In its rise and heyday, the Plenary Empire faced such threats and defeated them. It's a premise of the setting that once a state reaches a certain size and effectiveness of government, no outside force can defeat it: It can only defeat itself. (Yes, you might find some contemporary resonance here. That is deliberate.) The specific campaign began in the city of Thalassene. It's low fantasy: the PCs are members of a neighborhood watch that finds itself dealing with much bigger threats than bar brawls and riots, from an undead serial killer to scheming foreign ambassadors. The characters have advanced in power, though, to the point where such challenges are no longer challenging: The campaign is on hiatus while we, and the PCs decide where to go next, but the PCs are sufficiently involved in the lives of various NPCs that Thalassene will stay the center of the campaign for a while. No world-spanning quests in the offing. What sort of campaign do you imagine running? Dean Shomshak

From a cynical but rational point of view, that is the job of legislator. Their job is to win elections... period. (Well, and fundraise for future elections.) Parties have think-tanks to work out policies and lawyers to write legislation: If the party holds enough seats, the legislation can pass -- and a loyal dunderhead can fill a seat as well as, or better than, a policy wonk. And the dunderhead may well have a better connection to the common man than the policy wonk who uses big words in long sentences and can't get to the emotional point. Dean Shomshak

It's the real Great Replacement. I suspect (though I cannot prove) that conspiracy theories often are a sort of Freudian displacement, a way of hiding from fears that are too great to acknowledge. I suggest it's less frightening to believe in a giant evil conspiracy to bring in brown people who are Not Like Us than to admit that one's own children are the ones Not Like Us. But hasn't that always been the case? Our children (I use "our" collectively -- I have no offspring and almost certainly never will) are never just Mini-Mes. They are their own people. We teach them as best we can, give them whatever help we can... then put the world in their hands when we retire to our graves. Thus has it ever been. And "conservatives" take note: Stories of attempts to do otherwise rarely end well. Dean Shomshak

Which is why you're here, trying to go beyond what's provided! I've done development work for pay. It may not be fair to judge this supplement (what's its name again?) by your short summaries, and I haven't followed all your redevelopment threads, but what I've seen of the source material doesn't impress me. I think you'll need to do quite a bit of work to make this a setting that will wow your players. I'll try to point you toward the questions to ask, but in the end you're the one who needs to answer them. Dean Shomshak

Today's episode of Marketplace reports that banks that loaned Musk money to buy Twitter are selling the debt at 60% discount. It's perfectly normal for banks to sell debt: They want to get their money back quickly, so they can loan it out again. Taking a haircut like this? Not so much. A sinking feeling about selling Twitter's debt - Marketplace (I think that's the whole episode, but it's only half an hour and you can probably skip through it.) Dean Shomshak

Debris from Challenger space shuttle found off the coast of Florida : NPR Dean Shomshak

I just heard about this on All Things Considered. Here's their appreciation. Actor Kevin Conroy, best known as the voice of Batman, died Friday at age 66 : NPR RIP, sir. Dean Shomshak

As far as Fuentes' desire for a Christian nationalist dictatorship, the anti-Trump conservative David French recently pointed out that the world's largest avowedly Christian Nation is currently getting the pants beat off it in Ukraine. Putin made Christian Nationalism part of his dictatorship from day one. It's everything Mr Fuentes wants. It's not doing so well. https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/frenchpress/the-spiritual-lessons-of-a-christian/ You have to subscribe to read the whole article, though it's free. My sister printed it out for me, so I can summarize Mr French's three "Spiritual Lessons from a Christian Nationalist Military Defeat": * Power corrupts. Not exactly a new observation, but Putin's Russia offers one more example that corrupted, self-serving leadership inevitably hollows out institutions and the country as a whole. * Christendom dilutes Christianity. French argues that Christian nationalists focus on the collective institutions of the faith, not the "radical personal renewal and redemption that is the heart of Christianity." Putin's invasion of Ukraine was supposedly, in part, to defend Christendom against the Satanic corruption of the West. And their methods for doing so...? * Brutality isn't strength. "Bullies look strong. They strut and peacock. Russians bomb civilians. They rape women. They loot empty homes. They're ruthless. They make commercials casting themselves as fearless, fearsome warriors. And now they're fleeing by the thousands, thrown into headlong retreat by a far smaller nation, fighting with a fraction of the resources, in one of the most shocking military setbacks in modern times. Brutality is meeting courage, and courage prevails." If Mr Fuentes truly wants to live in a "Christian Nation," well, nobody's stopping him from moving to Putin's Russia. They would seem to be made for each other. Dean Shomshak

This question has not been answered. Is it just the bog-standard hereditary aristocracy? Or something else? And who allocates the offices for which they scheme and murder each other? What are those offices, anyway? Military, political, other? Dean Shomshak

I have not read the Talislanta setting so comparisons mean nothing to me. But the core concept -- a border area that's become a place of its own -- is interesting. Because borders *do* develop cultures of their own, especially when the centers of power are relatively far away. And while a wall is a wall, a river can be a wall in some circumstances, a highway in others. The Rio Grande valley between the US and Mexico is a RL example. Ditren's politics will be complicated, between people who still identify more with Old Moregadore or Old Thosque, and people who are loyal to the new confederation. (Who will have factions of their own -- localists and federalists.) PCs who get involved with anyone in a position of authjority may find themselves courted, threatened, or lied to by people who want to use them or prevent them from siding with rivals. How navigable is the river? The more boat traffic it can sustain, the stronger the commercial ties between the communities along it. For better or for worse: If the river is navigable, local leaders might feel more incentive to try quashing rivals along it to claim a greater share of trade for themselves. Dean Shomshak

According to my morning paper, Sen. Patty Murray is 15 points ahead of her no-experience Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley, which is considerably better than pre-election polls showed. Smiley has not yet conceded, saying there are votes yet to be counted. In the House races, Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Spokane, cruised to reelection against his Democratic opponent. The good side of this is that Newhouse is one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, and he also handily defeated the several MAGA cultists who challenged him in the primary. Rep. Jaime Herrerra Beutler, another Trump impeacher, lost her primary to a Democrat and Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed MAGA election deniaer (and, the local politics reporter for KUOW says, a complete loon whose speeches are Joycean stream-of-consciousness rants among multiple conspiracy theories). At the moment, the Democrat is ahead by 5 points. Democrat Kim Schrier is also about 5 points ahead of her Republican challenger Matt Larkin in the 8th district, which crosses the Cascade Mountains and had been red for decades before Schrier won. Larkin's another MAGAist who tried to paint Schrier as a criminal-coddling radical; Schrier ran on protecting abortion access and her local work for the district, including law enforcement and hay farmers. For state senate, Democratic incumbent Emily Randall is ahead of her R challenger, state rep. Jesse Young, whom the legislature stripped of his staff due to repeated complaints of abusive behavior; and who, when Gig Harbor had its own tiny Black Lives Matter protest, chose to stand with a few Proud Boys who showed up to counter-protest. Young ceded his house rep position to try for the senate. So it looks like I will no longer be represented in the state legislature by a white supremacist. And in the race to replace Young, the Democrat is also ahead. Dean Shomshak

Awwww! ...Should I be terrified? (I mean, by this specifically?) Dean Shomshak

Another attempt to deduce the state of intelligent life in the universe based on our not seeing evidence of any other. Um, OK. Dean Shomshak

This All Things Considered story claims the Gen Z and Millennial voters strongly favor Democrats, and their rate of p[articipation is growing. As a radio story, however, it doesn't provide charts or graphs to provide numbers. (Though the guest claims that voters over age 65 lean Republican by 12%). I provide it for what it's worth. https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1135619172/how-young-voters-became-the-wall-for-the-red-wave Dean Shomshak

My morning newspaper's front-page story on the election was blessedly free of preliminary results that don't actually mean anything, as WA elections cannot fairly be called until all the mail-in ballots arrive. (Blessedly because if something is not known, don't pretend it is.) But it said voting was generally trouble-free across the country, with no major incidents of voter intimidation. The polling places that ran short of ballots were restocked in time, ballots were collected despite glitchy voting machines in an Arizona precinct, a woman taking pictures of voters at a drop box was promptly stopped, etc. I was expecting armed attacks by Proud Boys, so I am pleased. Dean Shomshak

The place where the party never has to end reminds me of the Venusberg from Wagner's Tannhauser. The place of ultimate pleasure... but for Tannhauser even the embrace of the goddess herself palls and he abandons her to seek a higher meaning. Spiffy melodrama, if you've a taste for Wagnerian music and singing. Whereas Hieronymus Bosch supplies a classic name for such a locale: the Garden of Earthy Delights. Dean Shomshak

The Incas also had no form of money, or even proto-money, according to Goldstein's Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing. The state collected all goods produced, then redistributed them to the populace as it saw fit. Of course, all labor was also centrally planned and compulsory. An "existence proof" that such a society can function. I make no judgement as to whether such a political economy is desirable. They also got by without writing, though the knotted-cord "quipu" were a form of record-keeping to manage all the collection and redistribution. All in all, a good source of inspiration for Fantasy or SF societies that go beyond the standard tropes. Dean Shomshak