DShomshak

We stopped buying wrapping paper decades ago. We still have at least a half-dozen rolls. Maybe we'll start on them when we run out of wrapping paper re-used from past years. I figure our stock should last up to my neices' grandchildren. We have all the lights we need, too. I still put up the string of lights around the door that my parents bought for their fist Christmas, at least 70 years ago. Most of the sockets still work. Ornaments? HAHAHAHAHA. In addition to glass balls, strings of beads, little plastic musical instruments, and other ornaments that are older than I am, we have Christmas balls I made decades ago with Styrofoam balls covered in colorful fabric or silky thread, ribbon, beads and jewelry findings, and all the ornaments my mother received as presents when she taught preschool. We have enough for at least 3 trees. We suck as consumers. But tradition? We've got tradition in spades. Dean Shomshak

A nice Thanksgiving yesterday, with family. Today is Eat Leftovers Day. Also Stay Home And Don't Buy Anything Day, for I am a traitor to the American way of life. Dean Shomshak Also: So much delicious pie... Dean Shomshak

23 minutes in, Arthur mentions filled-in mineshafts as giveaways of pre-human civilizations. Others too, which would require fairly baroque scenarios to remove from geological evidence. I too thought of banded iron deposits; also fossil fuels, which we are ripping through at a tremendous rate and which are not replenished at all quickly -- or at all, since Earth is unlikely to see another Carboniferous Period. A pre-human civilization that maintained comparable-to-current technology for very long should have used them up. Except... Earth's surface has seen an awful lot of erosion and deposition. It might be interesting to ask a geologist how accessible the Minnesota banded iron deposits were 50 or 100 million years ago. Or conversely, an estimate of banded iron deposits that could have been accessible long ago but were eroded away and lost. Or on the third hand, there might be deposits that are now deeply buried, but that might be easier to mine in another 50 million years (thought this total reserve must inevitably go down over time). IIRC the recent NOVA series "Ancient Earth" mentioned that eroded coal deposits put a lot of carbon into sea ooze, which eventually got cooked into petroleum. The coal fields under the Soberian Traps also got cooked away by thoat series of massive eruptions, helping to bring about the Great Dying. So there might be major coal deposits that were accessible once and whose fate is now impossible to guess. Again, I think one would need to ask a geologist. As Arthur says, it's still all a bit contrived. But a clever writer might be able to manage an illusion of plausibility. (When I ran my Planetary Romance campaign, I went the other direction and made the extinct aliens of 40 Eridani impossible to miss. Not only did their towering cities of age-defying crystal still standing, needing only new plumbing and wiring for humans to inhabit, they knew they were doomed by a companion star's transition from red giant to white dwarf and left records of their culture in vaults filled with neon for preservation, surrounded by huge bullseyes of concrete salted with long-lived radioisotopes as "Dig Here" signs that could last a billion years, in case their attempts at submarine and subterranean cities failed. They were people who knew how to rage against the dying of the light. But humans also found a planet so mined-out that heavy industry could not flourish, which is why so many people still ride around on domesticated animals, use sailing ships, and fight with glass swords instead of heavy artillery...) Dean Shomshak

The only case where I ported a character directly from other media into my Champions game was in my early "Seattle Sentinels" campaigns, in which the heroes' police xcontact was a captain named Dietrich. He was Lieutenant Dietrich from Barney Miller, promoted and moved to the other side of the country. At least, that's how I played him. While I've read lots of comic books (mostly Bronze Age; the Iron Age '90s eventually bored me into quitting everything but Astro City), I have never ported characters directly from a comic book into my game, or copied a plot from anywhere. Types and tropes, yes, but I have tried to learn from rather than copy. Like, my dimensional conqueror Skarn the Shaper happened because I knew my Dr. Strange-inspired "Keystone Konjurors" campaign needed a Big Bad filling the same role as the Dread Dormammu -- but I gave Skarn quite a different origin and personality. His home, the Congeries, is very much a "Dark Dimension" homage, though. Also, I pulled various demons and other creatures from mythology and occult lore, but translating them into something gameable usually takes a fair bit of, shall we say, creative re-interpretation or extending of source material. My vampires show a fair bit of resemblance to those in Vampire: the Masquerade, but that's fair because VtM draws a wide net through vampire pop culture. No background mythology about Caine (the Bible guy but spelled with a final E to be more pretentious), Antediluvians, the Great Jyhad, blah blah blah. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and found it didn't fit. Dean Shomshak

Another library turned up in my newsfeed: Oxford's Bodleian Library. The slide show even notes it as a "Dark Academia" setting, and that its shelves have appeared in various Fantasy and superhero movies. Inside Europe’s oldest library with 13 million books and bizarre membership rules (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

Duke, you raised your kids right. Dean Shomshak

This item just turned up in my internet front page newsfeed. A secret library walled away decades (centuries?) ago should be good for a Fantasy scenario or two. Plus it's in Tibet, for extra mystical glamor. Unveiling the Unseen: 84,000 Unread Manuscripts Discovered at Monastery (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

A recent article in The Economist pointed out that several developing South and East Asian countries are among the most rapidly 'aging,' demographically... without having first attained the degree of affluence enjoyed by, say, Japan. This will make supporting a large elder population even more difficult. One solution might be to import labor. In a few decades, countries that are now freaking out about unplanned immigration from the Middle East and Africa may be actively courting such immigrants as a supplemental labor force, because those regions are the demographically 'youngest.' As a lover of irony, I find some piquance in this. Dean Shomshak

It's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and yes, it is excellent! EDIT: Oops, should have checked the next page before responding. But it's still a wonderful, and wonder-full, movie. Dean Shomshak

People snarking on Twitter (pardon me, "X") over something a politician said isn't usually worth sharing here, but this is just too funny because it's so true. Far-Right GOP Lawmaker's Question About Republicans Backfires Spectacularly (msn.com) I'd suggest to Mr. Roy that he should switch parties and join the Dems. Even if his policy goals are anathema to most Democrats, he'd be in a party whose members actually want to legislate, and he would be in a position to attempt rational persuasion. Dean Shomshak

I am reminded of Liz Truss and the head of lettuce. Dean Shomshak

Never had it (yet), though my brother did. I had to bring him his meals at the far end of the house, both of use masked, and do his covid tests until we were sure he was over it. I was pretty seriously worried after spending a few hours unmasked among hundreds of people to visit a Lovecraft=themed Hunted House attraction in Tacoma, then out to a Lovecraft-themed bar afterward for nachos. (Devil's Reef, also in downtown Tacoma. Tki bar, but the drinks all have names inspired by "The Shadow over Innsmouth." Proprietor recommends you not have the Third Oath of Dagon.) But it's ten days out and I've still shown no symptoms and my tests are negative. I live with and help care for my very old, very frail mother. If she caught covid, it would certainly kill her. So I dislike taking chances. Dean Shomshak

Vide Doc Democrqacy's admonition, here's All Things Considered's recent interview with an Oregon Representative who seems like a very earnest public servant. His special interest is public transportation and making cities more walkable and bikeable. Naturally, I'd never heard of him before this, because loudmouth lunatics hog all the media attention. And the media usually let them. Though Mr. Blumenauer has also decided not to seek reelection. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/09/1211949662/an-exit-interview-with-democratic-rep-earl-blumenauer-of-oregon Dean Shomshak

Restrainable was my first thought as well. However, if the weapons created are *exactly* the same as the 'mundane' versions except for how they are created (psionic energy instead of a weaponsmith), perhaps the Power you're looking for is a Physical Transform: Weapon from Nothing. Expanded Results Group, to make any kind of weapon (I'd set that at +1/2 for any weapon, +1/4 for a limited selection). Limited Target Group (Only from Thin Air, -1/4), because you can't use the Transform to change ogther objects into weapons -- meaning you can't use the Transform to get rid of, say, an opponent's armor. Likely All-or-Nothing (-1/2) so a few dice are enough to make hand weapons but the character won't use it repeatedly to create Mind Trebuchets. Then whatever other Limitations you think are appropriate -- maybe Concentration and a Phase of Extra Time? The "reversal condition" might be when the character no longer needs the weapon or the weapon is off his or her person for more than a Turn. No equipping armies with materialized weapons! Dean Shomshak

From my frontpage newsfeed. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given the sheer number of state legislators, that one would suggest flat-out ignoring initiative results they don't like. Direct democracy, boo! ...As long as it gives the wrong result. So, eyeroll. Republican Pushes to Overturn Ohio Election Result (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

Yesterday's episode of "The Daily" reported on Donald Trump, Don Jr. and Eric Trump testifying in the NY fraud case. Reporter's takeaway: The prosecutors in Trump's criminal trials will try their darndest to get Trump himself on the stand. On trial for lying, he repeats the lies, under oath. Plus raving at the jusge, which for some reason judges do not take well to. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/podcasts/the-daily/trump-trial.html As one recent op-ed put it, Trump finally faces people he can't bully, bribe, or bury in lawyers. And it's driving him crazy. (or revealing the crazy that was always there.) Don Jr, by comparison, merely displays the same blithe conviction that laws and facts are for other people. Dean Shomshak

Oh -- speaking of Earth history, the science program NOVA just finished a four-part series called "Ancinet Earth" that follow the Earth's development from coalescing from cosmic dust to the present. Earth has been very different planets throughout its history, which would make excellent models for alien worlds. Dean Shomshak

My newsfeed says Democrat Andy Bashear won re-election as governor of Kentucky. Dean Shomshak

Oh, I don't doubt the moral panic is completely sincere. The rules are changing quickly; people like them feel, correctly, that they no longer have the social privileges they once enjoyed. Of course they're lashing out at anything that offends their sensibilities. It's Fundamentalism 101. When you're about to lose everything, you can't give an inch on anything. Double down, even. I am told this is how American Christian fundamentalism came about. (Warning: I recount what I read; I am not myself an expert.) The late 19th century was another time of rapid changes that some Christians thought threatened the underpinnings of their faith and their notions of social hierarchy. So, they doubled down. One result was a redefinition of the Bible: no longer a complex text whose truths might be obscure and subject to re-interpretation, but *inerrant* in every word and *self-evident* in its truth. This created problems because the Bible manifestly holds heaping helpings of poetry, metaphor, parable, dubious history, and outright contradiction. So fundamentalists qualified their claim: The absolute truth of the Bible becomes self-evident to anyone who reads it if they have the Holy Spirit in their heart. Anyone who points out problems like Genesis giving multiple versions of the Creation merely prove they lack the Holy Spirit. In fact, that they are deceived by the Devil. Only this makes further problems, because people will still read this complex and difficult text and reach different conclusions. So who has the Holy Spirit and who is deceived by the Devil? Reason and historical and linguistic study having been ruled out, such contests become political. And this is how the Baptists, who began with the libertarian premise of each believer reading the Bible for himself, ended up with completely authoritarian dogma. It also follows that reading the Bible also no longer becomes necessary. The text is no longer a text: It is a talisman for evoking the Holy Spirit. I suspect the people who mock Speaker Mike Johnson for his Biblical/political claims miss the point. He doesn't need to cite a verse to explain his stance about, say, tariffs or aid to Ukraine. He's guided by his idea of the Bible, which he knows is true because the Holy Spirit tells him so. And I suspect the Moms for Liberty don't need to read the books they want banned, let alone read them critically, because those texts are also seen as talismans -- but for invoking the Devil. But that's just my own guess. Dean Shomshak

My brother-in-law says, "I want one!" Not paranoid AFAIK, but he likes fedoras. Has 2 from the 1940s. Dean Shomshak

Four-Eyes updated. Here's a bit of new text that incidentally addresses one of my pet peeves with the Champions Villains trilogy: A tendency to present all characters as experienced and in a sense "finished," with little uncertainty (or freedom) in what way they'll go. Sometimes I think characters should specifically be *new* villains, giving the PCs a chance to shape their destinies. Dean Shomshak

The Economist has of course run editorials urging Israel, Middle Eastern leaders, and American government to be reasonable and seek a long-term, peaceful solution that will make the Middle East better for everyone. Unfortunately, none of those parties are prone to be reasonable. I could go on to discuss Israel's foundation, history, and exaltation of 3,000-year-old mythology at the expense of real, present people, but many people cannot distinguish between criticism of Zionism (a political program) and anti-Semitism (hatred of a people and religion). So I'll stop now\, and merely say that modern Israel's history has been a graphic demonstration that two wrongs still don't make a right. Dean Shomshak

Thank you, I knew I'd heard it before on a comedy-song program but had no context. So I made up one as silly as the song. (Though now I wish someone would do a Southern parody of Tosca.) Dean Shomshak

Ah, Vinnie's aria from Act III of "Bubba" Puccini's operatic masterpiece Toscaloosa! I Will never forget tyhe first time I heard Pavarotti's magnificent rendition. (Though some people say Ray Stevens' is better. I grant you, it's a tough choice.) Dean Shomshak

No legal eagle here, but it occurs to me that lawsuits do not have to target actual persons, nor be brought on behalf of actual persons. Corporations have only a legal fiction of quasi-personhood, but they get sued all the time. And environmental laws have resulted in lawyers bringing suits on behalf of rivers, forests, and other natural phenomena on the grounds that human activities have damaged them. So even if undead (or nature spirits, or whatever) are not legal persons, they still might be subject to civil law and use it themselves. -Just to add another layer of complication. In the litigation-prone US, at least, judges and legislators might not want to open the cans of worms implied by super-powers and nonhuman intelligences, but lawyers will probably force them to do so. If for no other reasons, lawyers with a hunger for publicity would probably try bringing test cases to see if some existing law or precedent could be contorted to fit the situation. Dean Shomshak