DShomshak

We're all familiar with Trump as "Crybaby Conqueror." That observation is not why I'm posting this opinion piece. Rather, it's the last part on his plausible influence by a well known pro wrester of his youth. This is not the only connector I've heard of between Trump and pro wrestling, either, though I'd have to search a while to find the specific story. The over-the-top theatricality and braggadicio -- yeah, I can see it.
 
'Crybaby conqueror': Columnist nails Trump's appeal to MAGA fanatics (msn.com)
 
Dean Shomshak

I recently saw Season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. (Came in at the library. Season 2 is on order but already has so many holds I probably can't see it for another year.) A "prequel" to TOS, following the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike and his crew. Decent Trek, nothing too bad, with some nice development of some characters before their appearance in TOS.  The Gorn are a significant menace, which sort of retcons their appearance in TOS episode "Arena," in which nobody seems to have heard of them, but not to such an extent that I can't justify. My chief criticism would be that the acting seems a bit low-key compared to the animation all the TOS actors brought to their roles.
 
Best episode IMO was the wackiest, in which Doctor Mbenge finds himself caught in a version of a children's fantasy story, with Enterprise crew drafted into the other roles. Anson Mount does a delightful turn as the treacherous poltroon Chamberlain, in marked contraswt to his rather subdued Captain Pike. But everyone does pretty well: mmm, delicious scenery!
 
Dean Shomshak

You are going to LOVE Season 2!
There's Vulcan charades, a crossover episode with the Lower Decks cartoon, and a musical episode!
 

This is a recent real-science article suggesting that one could "look inside of", e.g., the Sun, by watching what happens to gravitational waves when the Sun moves in front of a source of those, like a compact neutron star binary.  The emphasis in the article is on the possibility of the technique and what you might learn from it.  It had never occurred to me before to think about gravity waves being "refracted" by astronomical objects but it could happen.  At the very least, it gives Star Hero GMs another kind of handwavium from which to make up detection systems.

I found this meme on the Internet -- apparently it's been floating for a few years. No author attributed, but it's a pithy summation:
 
“Trump is the poor man’s idea of a rich man, the weak man’s idea of a strong man, and the stupid man’s idea of a smart man.” ~ Anonymous

I enjoyed the "Lord Darcy" stories and am glad to learn that another author continued them -- and did it well, which is flipping amazing.
 
Yeah, I know Dunsany influenced Smith and Lovecraft; I've been fans of theirs for ages. But somehow I'd never gotten around to reading much Dunsany even though I knew perfectly well he was a majpor influence.
 
I've never seen Lords of Creation, but Pegana somewhat influenced early development of White Wolf's Exalted in some of its treatment of gods and demons. Its model for gods shifted to be more Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy, but I think a few stylistic aspects remained. (And Games of Divinity owe their origin to Dunsany as a phrase, if not what they actually were.) The most persistent influence probably came with Exalted's demons and their world of Malfeas -- likely because that was mostly the creation of R. Sean Borgstrom, a.k.a. Jenna Moran, who is one of the very few game writers I can think of with the mental and stylistic chops to achieve a Dunsanian style.
 
Dean Shomshak

Heh.  The old Avalon Hill RPG Lords of Creation devotes a number of pages to covering Dunsany's Pegana cycle as a game setting, and has game stats for a fair few of the deities involved there.  Only game I've ever seen that even tried using it and doesn't really do a good job of it, but the whole game is a crazy genre mashup to begin with, with a "monster manual" (the Book of Foes) that has to be seen to be believed.  Makes Rifts look tame and lacking in scope by comparison.  Perhaps more usefully, it also includes what amounts to a thinly-disguised version of the setting of the Lord Darcy supernatural detective stories, which makes for an excellent RPG sandbox for everything from diplomatic intrigue to exploration to crime drama.  Lot of stuff jammed into that old core box.
 
Dunsany's originals are an entertaining read (or listen) regardless.  His writing style is elegant and distinctive, although you can see its influence in a lot of "weird stories" pulp authors - not least of whom being HP Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.

Listened to Lord Dunsany's Gods of Pegana and Time and the Gods as Librivox audiobooks. These are seminal works so I'm glad I finally got to them. Pegana is a book of myths that also are sometimes stories, but more often prose poems, describing the gods, their prophets, and miscellaneous doings -- a view into another world's mythology, from igts beginning to its foretold end. Language and imagery are amazing, though the style is florid and deliberately archaic. Time and the Gods is more miscellaneous, a series of stories and vignettes involving, in one way or another, time and "the gods of old." Only some constitute actual stories; more are just vignettes, Dunsany playing around with language and image but having no actual plot. I think that some of the stories that were actual stories, however, did give an authentic feel of myth, however.
 
Recommended, but don't expect a lot of plot, characterization, or action. That's not what Dunsany's doing.
 
EDIT: From a gamer's perspective, these are worthless as potential adventure scenarios. However, they could be great examples of the myths and fables told by people within a Fantasy world -- or the actual supernatural background of the world.
 
Dean Shomshak

Since the name on the cover is an obvious pseudonym, one wonders which Hero Boards member is the actual author.

Grindavik eruption has erupted:
 
 
edit: There were so many cameras on this volcano that they managed to catch the actual first moment of the eruption:
 
 

This picture shows the railway bridge over the River Tamar which is close to me. I thought some of you might like to see, It made the front cover of a calendar
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-67741742

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

If you want a guide to Earth's past geography, the man to consult is geologist Christopher Scotese. Even more so if you want a guide to Earth's future geography -- AFAIK he's the first to try running plate tectonics forward, though after about 50 million years the continents might follow different courses. If you want to send characters back to the Permian (c'mon, everybody does Age of Dinosaurs, stretch yourself) or forward 100 million years, Scotese has made maps for you. Here's his website's Earth History section:
 
http://scotese.com/earth.htm
 
And here's that map of the Permian:

 
Scotese also has a Youtube channel with plate tectonic animations.
 
And here's a PDF atlas of the future, with maps at 25-million year increments, with brief explanations of what the continents are doing and what the climate is probably like.
 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323511465_Atlas_of_Future_Plate_Tectonic_Reconstructions_Modern_World_to_Pangea_Proxima_250_Ma
 
Dean Shomshak

Ok Pulp it is
 
NT: The Empire of the Golden Scorpion !
Who is the villainous Golden Scorpion and why does he want to take over the world ?
Stay tuned and you might just get the answers.
You either do 
(a) one of five members of the Golden Scorpion's group;
They don't need to be called Scorpion this or that or something Scorpion
(b) a rival of the Golden Scorpion who may be has their own domain like the sea or the sky (jet packs and submarines here we go !);
(c) a specialist brought in to do a job for the group or a scientist or similar forced to work for the group;
 Minimum total five entries excluding The Golden Scorpion who follows now !
Must be pulpy in feel so robots and gangsters are good
 
The Golden Scorpion
(Because yellow might be considered offensive, there are coward jokes being made and Golden just sounds better)
No-one knows who he, or she, really is. No flesh is visible. They wear a cowl and cape sort of thing (think Marvel Secret Order). They wear gloves. The cowl has a big golden scorpion design like the Templar Knights had the red cross on their tabards. 
They are out to conquer the world !
So they seek new inventions to exploit to do this. They have a secret base. They have a masterplan. They have loyal troops (which is a surprise).
Could it be more than one person ? Certainly the voice has changed and sometimes it has an accent. Other times not. They understand different languages but tend to speak Mandarin Chinese and English.
They have various devices to defend themselves. And they sit on a throne. Dare you face them ?
 
(And no just because there are a lot of exclamation marks does not mean a specific Mad scientist is involved. Honest.)

Steel-Claw
Steel-Claw serves the glorious Golden Scorpion! Steel-Claw uses Steel-claw's mighty steelclaw, which Golden Scorpion gave Steel-claw to replace Steel-Claw's old left hand which was mangled! Steel-Claw prefers the Steelclaw! The hand was puny and weak. The Steel-claw is strong and snappy! Steel-Claw is strong! Steel-Claw is deadly at hand to hand..er hand to claw! Steel-Claw would die for Golden Scorpion! Steel-Claw does not use pronouns! Steel-Claw talks too loudly!!  Most find Steel-Claw tiring because of this!

Svengali Servo
 
It's origin's are a bit of a mystery, but this robot appeared suddenly at a charity gala and used it's Hypnotronic Eye to hold sway over the wealthy attendees. It would go on to operate as a gentleman thief speaking with a posh English accent and eschewing violence and barbarism in it's various heists and schemes. Servo clashed with the likes of  Captain Dare and her Sky Sirens, Herc Stronghold and most famously, Doc Copper. Recently he has joined forces with Golden Scorpion and his organization to help kidnap scientists and engineers for Project Scorpio Giganteus.

I dare say that's what most GMs do in practice. There's too much CU to use in the average campaign; GMs must decide which sections and characters to use, and leave the rest in the background.
 
But that's how comic books operate, too. (Or did, anyway.) Take the Marvel U, for instance. The Fantastic Four have their stable of regular and semi-regular villains like Dr Doom, Galactus, the Mole Man, assorted aliens, etc. Spider-Man and Daredevil have their street-level villains, which the X-Men seldom if ever encounter because they're fighting Sentinels, other mutant factions, and such ilk. None of them are likely to fight Nightmare, Dormammu, or Dr Strange's other mystical foes. And so on.
 
Sure, change-of-pace stories happen: The X-Men go into space, Spider-Man fights a demon, or Thor fights robots. But that's the point: Change of pace. Heroes usually stick to their niches.
 
So pick what style of heroes and team you want for your campaign and pick the set of villains and background to support it. Say the rest doesn't exist or just ignore it. Like, unless you're running a Mystic Masters campaign most of the mystical side of the CU effectively shouldn't exist. Unless you really want to make anti-mutant prejudice a big part of the campaign, you can (and probably should) ignore IHA and the MInuteman robots and, conversely, Kinematik and his mutant supremacists. And unless you want to actually run an alien invasion story arc or out-to-space story arc, the alien races might as well all not exist... jnless one of your players specifically wants to play an alien character.
 
The same goes for the "thousands of supers around the world" issue. For decades, 90% of Marvel stories happened in the Greater NYC area. Heroes were more likely to visit the Kree Galaxy than, say, Nebraska. Or even major countries like India or France. DC spread things out further by at least giving different home cities to heroes, such as Metropolis, Gotham City, Star City, Central City, yadda yadda. But those heroes tended to have their own favored sets of villains, too.
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

It's been quite a while, so I checked Wikipedia.
 
Steal water, eat us, and use us as slave soldiers -- a trifecta of idiocy! And all on Arthur's list. Well, maybe he thought it was so bad that nobody would remember it... or he suppressed the memory as too traumatic. Hey, I hadn't thought of this excrementitious piece of sci-fi in decades.
 
Dean Shomshak

Did one last year with the Youth group-  it was part of an on-going campaign that had gotten a bit derailed by a Hunted roll, leading to a Foxbat arc that proved popular enough that we just kept rolling with it.
 
Short version:  FB (one of only 2- Technically 3) published characters I have ever used, ever (I think I mentioned that enemies books aren't really useful to me)) and Leroy (in my universe, Leroy is the only thing that makes FB competent.  Without Leroy, FB is a run-of-the-mill whacko with irritating personal traits) have succesfully stolen the oldest gemstone in the universe, a boring dun-coloured not-quite-transuscent thing with a couple of elements found nowhere else on earth and rumored to be magical (maybe it is; maybe it isn't).  He needed it as a cap for his walking stick so he could complete his Evangelist costume for The Church of Everyone Else is Going to Die.
 
At the climax, the stone was lost.  It resurfaced a couple of months later when, while decorating the record-holdingly-massive pine tree in front of Campaign City Hall, it was found lodged in the higher branches right about the time they workers were done decorating the tree for Christmas.  Having struck most of their equipment, they just left it, planning to "discover" it when undecorating.
 
And once the lights were flipped on to show off the tree--
 
Well, the adventure was called  "Versus the Christmas Treant," if that helps.
 
 
 
Best part (for me) was when Kinetica (whose player decided she was native to the city because none of the other characters were, allowing her periodic grabs of inventing things as a "tour guide" of sorts) felt the ground rumbling and intoned in terror "oh God!  Not _again_!"
 
Which made for some hilarious role playing when the treant ripped free of it's earthly fetters....

Isaac Arther devotes an episode to "Dumbest Alien Invasions," on why the standard excuses for heroic Earthlings battling nasty conquering aliens don't hold up to even cursory scrutiny. (I'm surprised that in the "Steal Our Water" segment he doesn't mention V. Ye gods, more than one writer thought this made sense?)
 
I enjoyed the running joke of how the rules of warfare are numbered.
 
(Incidentally, some earlier episodes explain Mr Arthur's voice. It's a speech impediment, not an accent. As he says once in onscreen text, if you've never heard of rhotacism  -- difficulty pronouncing the letter R -- it's because people who have it can't say it.)
 
 
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

No matter how hard you try, you will never be as cool as this duck.