DShomshak

Learned this one from an FB author's group;  I think y'all will appreciate it...
 
https://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-quo2.htm
 
 

Something like this.  I don't want magical weapons to be those things where "there's the magic item store, where's our list again?" attitude.  I want some normal weapons that are so good as to be considered almost semi magical.  To me that will make those magical weapons/ items something special!

And for anyone who wants some "flavor text," here's an excerpt from the Campaign Chronicle one of my players kept, initially for the benefit of a few former players (but wow I'm glad for the reference now). I added only a few notes of clarification.
 
Also, Wetchley House is ornately Victorian, but I'm not sure it qualifies as a "mansion." The original plans were of a house of fairly modest size, just one step up from a "cottage."
--------------
>Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 02:31:34
>To: [REDACTED]
>From: [REDACTED]
>Subject: Madhouse!
 
Well, after a month long break due to Thanksgiving, we again continue the saga of our motley crew of spellcasters...
 
Last month you may recall, we fought and defeated the Anarchitect; at the end, chaos went wild in the Anarchitect's Babylonian base, with Artifex running in and trying to spell hack the wild chaos to settle it. It succeeded, after a fashion. The Victorian mansion is now bidimensionally located (in both Babylon's Victorian London district and in our old lot on Earth in Tacoma, WA). We rest a day, and then decide to explore our new base together. I won't go into details of the exploration, since no exciting battles or such developed, but the house has 9 floors (maybe 10, depending on how you count). The first 4 floors are Earthly, and are - with a few odd bits, such as the living goldfish swimming in the crystal doorknob - a substantially normal appearing Victorian mansion (allowing for some modern conveniences; electricity, semi-modern appliances, etc.). On the Earthly levels exist such rooms as the Kitchen, a Parlor (which Jezeray is dressing this up as a Seance Room for her Fortune Telling business), Library, Smoking Lounge, 3 bedrooms, a Music room, and a Den. All are decorated in a substantially Victorian style. There is also a Cellar floor with the utilities and a now-unused coal bin, and a area perfect for Redeemer (who now has taken to calling himself The Bishop) to convert for his crypt-like quarters.
 
The "next" 4 floors (as we numbered them anyway) are Babylonian - each is decorated in a style based on the 4 sons of Urthona (the Supreme Lord of Art). His sons were Art's envoys to the other
Zoas. The bottom Babylonian floor is dedicated to Bromion, Art's envoy to Order, and is decked out in Swedish Modern (all white tile, chrome trim, very angular with lots of flush surfaces). This floor has a Game Room, Pantry, Office (w/ obsolete PC computer), and a very sterile bedroom.
 
The next floor up is in the style of Theotormon, Art's envoy to Nature, and is decorated in a style we termed Oriental Fusion - a mix of assorted oriental styles. This level has a parlor, vestibule (w/the traditional low Japanese tables), a very lushly appointed bedroom (which Artifex took dibs on), and a Buddhist Shrine of all things.
 
The 6th floor is a tribute to Rintrah, Art's envoy to Chaos, and is done in a style mixing Baroque and Heavy Metal elements - imagine the ornate carvings and paintings of mad King Ludwig's
castles, but with images of punk angels in leather instead of graceful swans or cherubim, and other similarly perverted imagery. This level houses a trophy room, and Armory (complete with medieval weapons and armor), a Salon, and the very ornate - if somewhat disturbing - bedroom.
 
The last Babylonian floor is in the style of Palamabron, Art's envoy to itself, and is decorated in a Art Nouveau / Surrealist style. This level is much bigger inside than outside, and has as its principle feature a Ballroom with a Musician's Dais. In addition, there is a Costume Room (with racks of assorted costumes; Jezeray stole a Gypsy costume to use in her job) and a storage room with lumber - which we will use to fuel the non-gas fireplaces that are located through the house. The main hallway "wraps around" and connects back to itself.
 
One door connects the corresponding floors on the Earth and Babylon sides of the house.
 
There is also a floor that does not exist with Babylon or Earth - in fact, when The Bishop used a Transform to open the skylight glass there was literally nothing beyond except a diffuse white light. The air started to get sucked out just like in a sci-fi movie when you breach the hull. This is what we call the Garden Level - it has a large garden, with a recessed bower to one side, and a round, 20' diameter pool (steps leading in suggest it is a swimming pool although the water is unheated) with a mermaid fountain in the center. There is also an area to the side decked out in plain white tiles. We think it would make a good gymnasiumif we put the equipment in.
 
The stairs form a double loop, too. If you start from the Earth side first floor and keep climbing, you go past the attic foor to arrive in… the cellar floor of the Babylon side. Keep going through the floors of the Babylon house, and above the attic you find the garden floor. Go up another flight and you’re in the cellar of the Earth side. One more flight up, and you’re back where you started.
 
Finally, the "tenth" floor, which is really the tower room above a balcony which is, in turn, over the front door. This is where Anarchitect was conducting his ritual. From the outside, this is just a little turret - but from the inside it’s a 20 foot square room. It seems somewhat reinforced, making it a good place to cast risky spells. It’s only 1 room, with 4 doors, one in each wall. 2 doors lead to the rooms near the turret – one to the Earth part of the house, one to the Babylon half. The other doors lead to matching closets on the Earth and Babylon sides.
 
I should also mention the elevator - it goes to every floor except the tower room. It has only five buttons, however. The first four (from bottom up) take you to the first four earthly floors. The last button takes you randomly to one of the Babylonian floors or the Garden floor. Of course, I have left our a plethora of bathrooms, small storage areas, etc.
 
Well, I hope I haven't spent too much time on the base, which understandably wouldn't interest you as much as me. Anyway, on to the actual adventure...
----------------
But that part isn't relevant here. Kudos to anyone who's lasted this long.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

Another poster expressed interest in seeing the plans for Wetchley House, the base acquired by the PCs in my first playtest campaign for Ultimate Supermage. Fortunately, I still have them as files, so you don't have to look at scans from my crappy scanner. Well, except for the picture of the house.
 
This was a 4th ed campaign, so the plans are hex-mapped.
 
The house isn't big. I don't remember the exact book from which I adapted the plans, but there are scads of books out there such as Victorian House Plans, Classic House Plans, etc. Then I traced and spliced together bits of drawings of those houses, with a little freehanding to fill in the gaps, and made an illustration. I'll start with that:

Dean Shomshak

Happy Tunguska Day!
 
Dean Shomshak

Happy Tunguska Day!
 
Dean Shomshak

Happy Tunguska Day!
 
Dean Shomshak

Another poster expressed interest in seeing the plans for Wetchley House, the base acquired by the PCs in my first playtest campaign for Ultimate Supermage. Fortunately, I still have them as files, so you don't have to look at scans from my crappy scanner. Well, except for the picture of the house.
 
This was a 4th ed campaign, so the plans are hex-mapped.
 
The house isn't big. I don't remember the exact book from which I adapted the plans, but there are scads of books out there such as Victorian House Plans, Classic House Plans, etc. Then I traced and spliced together bits of drawings of those houses, with a little freehanding to fill in the gaps, and made an illustration. I'll start with that:

Dean Shomshak

Wetchley House actually consists of two houses with identical exteriors, one on Earth and one in Babylon, the City of Man. Another floor exists in neither place: It's "above" the 3rd/attic floor of the Babylon half, but "below" the cellar floor of the Earth side. There's also a tower room (upper left in the illustration) whose location is a little hard to explain, but we'll get to that later.
 
Various doors, stairs and an elevator connect them. Much of the plans should be explicable from context, such as what's a door or window, stairs up or stairs down. Circles with letters and numbers in them indicate that a door or stairway operates interdimensionally. Like, where there's a circles "2b" near a half-door on a wall, that's a door from the Earth side, 2nd floor, to the Babylon side, 2nd floor. On the plan of the Babylon side, there's a corresponding "2A) marking the other side of the door (Babylon to Earth). It would have been better to use "E" and "B" for Earth and Babylon instead of "A" and "B," but at the time I never thought anyone but me and the players would see the plans. Oh well, I don't feel like changing the pictures now.
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 


 
Dean Shomshak
 
 
 

And for anyone who wants some "flavor text," here's an excerpt from the Campaign Chronicle one of my players kept, initially for the benefit of a few former players (but wow I'm glad for the reference now). I added only a few notes of clarification.
 
Also, Wetchley House is ornately Victorian, but I'm not sure it qualifies as a "mansion." The original plans were of a house of fairly modest size, just one step up from a "cottage."
--------------
>Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 02:31:34
>To: [REDACTED]
>From: [REDACTED]
>Subject: Madhouse!
 
Well, after a month long break due to Thanksgiving, we again continue the saga of our motley crew of spellcasters...
 
Last month you may recall, we fought and defeated the Anarchitect; at the end, chaos went wild in the Anarchitect's Babylonian base, with Artifex running in and trying to spell hack the wild chaos to settle it. It succeeded, after a fashion. The Victorian mansion is now bidimensionally located (in both Babylon's Victorian London district and in our old lot on Earth in Tacoma, WA). We rest a day, and then decide to explore our new base together. I won't go into details of the exploration, since no exciting battles or such developed, but the house has 9 floors (maybe 10, depending on how you count). The first 4 floors are Earthly, and are - with a few odd bits, such as the living goldfish swimming in the crystal doorknob - a substantially normal appearing Victorian mansion (allowing for some modern conveniences; electricity, semi-modern appliances, etc.). On the Earthly levels exist such rooms as the Kitchen, a Parlor (which Jezeray is dressing this up as a Seance Room for her Fortune Telling business), Library, Smoking Lounge, 3 bedrooms, a Music room, and a Den. All are decorated in a substantially Victorian style. There is also a Cellar floor with the utilities and a now-unused coal bin, and a area perfect for Redeemer (who now has taken to calling himself The Bishop) to convert for his crypt-like quarters.
 
The "next" 4 floors (as we numbered them anyway) are Babylonian - each is decorated in a style based on the 4 sons of Urthona (the Supreme Lord of Art). His sons were Art's envoys to the other
Zoas. The bottom Babylonian floor is dedicated to Bromion, Art's envoy to Order, and is decked out in Swedish Modern (all white tile, chrome trim, very angular with lots of flush surfaces). This floor has a Game Room, Pantry, Office (w/ obsolete PC computer), and a very sterile bedroom.
 
The next floor up is in the style of Theotormon, Art's envoy to Nature, and is decorated in a style we termed Oriental Fusion - a mix of assorted oriental styles. This level has a parlor, vestibule (w/the traditional low Japanese tables), a very lushly appointed bedroom (which Artifex took dibs on), and a Buddhist Shrine of all things.
 
The 6th floor is a tribute to Rintrah, Art's envoy to Chaos, and is done in a style mixing Baroque and Heavy Metal elements - imagine the ornate carvings and paintings of mad King Ludwig's
castles, but with images of punk angels in leather instead of graceful swans or cherubim, and other similarly perverted imagery. This level houses a trophy room, and Armory (complete with medieval weapons and armor), a Salon, and the very ornate - if somewhat disturbing - bedroom.
 
The last Babylonian floor is in the style of Palamabron, Art's envoy to itself, and is decorated in a Art Nouveau / Surrealist style. This level is much bigger inside than outside, and has as its principle feature a Ballroom with a Musician's Dais. In addition, there is a Costume Room (with racks of assorted costumes; Jezeray stole a Gypsy costume to use in her job) and a storage room with lumber - which we will use to fuel the non-gas fireplaces that are located through the house. The main hallway "wraps around" and connects back to itself.
 
One door connects the corresponding floors on the Earth and Babylon sides of the house.
 
There is also a floor that does not exist with Babylon or Earth - in fact, when The Bishop used a Transform to open the skylight glass there was literally nothing beyond except a diffuse white light. The air started to get sucked out just like in a sci-fi movie when you breach the hull. This is what we call the Garden Level - it has a large garden, with a recessed bower to one side, and a round, 20' diameter pool (steps leading in suggest it is a swimming pool although the water is unheated) with a mermaid fountain in the center. There is also an area to the side decked out in plain white tiles. We think it would make a good gymnasiumif we put the equipment in.
 
The stairs form a double loop, too. If you start from the Earth side first floor and keep climbing, you go past the attic foor to arrive in… the cellar floor of the Babylon side. Keep going through the floors of the Babylon house, and above the attic you find the garden floor. Go up another flight and you’re in the cellar of the Earth side. One more flight up, and you’re back where you started.
 
Finally, the "tenth" floor, which is really the tower room above a balcony which is, in turn, over the front door. This is where Anarchitect was conducting his ritual. From the outside, this is just a little turret - but from the inside it’s a 20 foot square room. It seems somewhat reinforced, making it a good place to cast risky spells. It’s only 1 room, with 4 doors, one in each wall. 2 doors lead to the rooms near the turret – one to the Earth part of the house, one to the Babylon half. The other doors lead to matching closets on the Earth and Babylon sides.
 
I should also mention the elevator - it goes to every floor except the tower room. It has only five buttons, however. The first four (from bottom up) take you to the first four earthly floors. The last button takes you randomly to one of the Babylonian floors or the Garden floor. Of course, I have left our a plethora of bathrooms, small storage areas, etc.
 
Well, I hope I haven't spent too much time on the base, which understandably wouldn't interest you as much as me. Anyway, on to the actual adventure...
----------------
But that part isn't relevant here. Kudos to anyone who's lasted this long.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

And for anyone who wants some "flavor text," here's an excerpt from the Campaign Chronicle one of my players kept, initially for the benefit of a few former players (but wow I'm glad for the reference now). I added only a few notes of clarification.
 
Also, Wetchley House is ornately Victorian, but I'm not sure it qualifies as a "mansion." The original plans were of a house of fairly modest size, just one step up from a "cottage."
--------------
>Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 02:31:34
>To: [REDACTED]
>From: [REDACTED]
>Subject: Madhouse!
 
Well, after a month long break due to Thanksgiving, we again continue the saga of our motley crew of spellcasters...
 
Last month you may recall, we fought and defeated the Anarchitect; at the end, chaos went wild in the Anarchitect's Babylonian base, with Artifex running in and trying to spell hack the wild chaos to settle it. It succeeded, after a fashion. The Victorian mansion is now bidimensionally located (in both Babylon's Victorian London district and in our old lot on Earth in Tacoma, WA). We rest a day, and then decide to explore our new base together. I won't go into details of the exploration, since no exciting battles or such developed, but the house has 9 floors (maybe 10, depending on how you count). The first 4 floors are Earthly, and are - with a few odd bits, such as the living goldfish swimming in the crystal doorknob - a substantially normal appearing Victorian mansion (allowing for some modern conveniences; electricity, semi-modern appliances, etc.). On the Earthly levels exist such rooms as the Kitchen, a Parlor (which Jezeray is dressing this up as a Seance Room for her Fortune Telling business), Library, Smoking Lounge, 3 bedrooms, a Music room, and a Den. All are decorated in a substantially Victorian style. There is also a Cellar floor with the utilities and a now-unused coal bin, and a area perfect for Redeemer (who now has taken to calling himself The Bishop) to convert for his crypt-like quarters.
 
The "next" 4 floors (as we numbered them anyway) are Babylonian - each is decorated in a style based on the 4 sons of Urthona (the Supreme Lord of Art). His sons were Art's envoys to the other
Zoas. The bottom Babylonian floor is dedicated to Bromion, Art's envoy to Order, and is decked out in Swedish Modern (all white tile, chrome trim, very angular with lots of flush surfaces). This floor has a Game Room, Pantry, Office (w/ obsolete PC computer), and a very sterile bedroom.
 
The next floor up is in the style of Theotormon, Art's envoy to Nature, and is decorated in a style we termed Oriental Fusion - a mix of assorted oriental styles. This level has a parlor, vestibule (w/the traditional low Japanese tables), a very lushly appointed bedroom (which Artifex took dibs on), and a Buddhist Shrine of all things.
 
The 6th floor is a tribute to Rintrah, Art's envoy to Chaos, and is done in a style mixing Baroque and Heavy Metal elements - imagine the ornate carvings and paintings of mad King Ludwig's
castles, but with images of punk angels in leather instead of graceful swans or cherubim, and other similarly perverted imagery. This level houses a trophy room, and Armory (complete with medieval weapons and armor), a Salon, and the very ornate - if somewhat disturbing - bedroom.
 
The last Babylonian floor is in the style of Palamabron, Art's envoy to itself, and is decorated in a Art Nouveau / Surrealist style. This level is much bigger inside than outside, and has as its principle feature a Ballroom with a Musician's Dais. In addition, there is a Costume Room (with racks of assorted costumes; Jezeray stole a Gypsy costume to use in her job) and a storage room with lumber - which we will use to fuel the non-gas fireplaces that are located through the house. The main hallway "wraps around" and connects back to itself.
 
One door connects the corresponding floors on the Earth and Babylon sides of the house.
 
There is also a floor that does not exist with Babylon or Earth - in fact, when The Bishop used a Transform to open the skylight glass there was literally nothing beyond except a diffuse white light. The air started to get sucked out just like in a sci-fi movie when you breach the hull. This is what we call the Garden Level - it has a large garden, with a recessed bower to one side, and a round, 20' diameter pool (steps leading in suggest it is a swimming pool although the water is unheated) with a mermaid fountain in the center. There is also an area to the side decked out in plain white tiles. We think it would make a good gymnasiumif we put the equipment in.
 
The stairs form a double loop, too. If you start from the Earth side first floor and keep climbing, you go past the attic foor to arrive in… the cellar floor of the Babylon side. Keep going through the floors of the Babylon house, and above the attic you find the garden floor. Go up another flight and you’re in the cellar of the Earth side. One more flight up, and you’re back where you started.
 
Finally, the "tenth" floor, which is really the tower room above a balcony which is, in turn, over the front door. This is where Anarchitect was conducting his ritual. From the outside, this is just a little turret - but from the inside it’s a 20 foot square room. It seems somewhat reinforced, making it a good place to cast risky spells. It’s only 1 room, with 4 doors, one in each wall. 2 doors lead to the rooms near the turret – one to the Earth part of the house, one to the Babylon half. The other doors lead to matching closets on the Earth and Babylon sides.
 
I should also mention the elevator - it goes to every floor except the tower room. It has only five buttons, however. The first four (from bottom up) take you to the first four earthly floors. The last button takes you randomly to one of the Babylonian floors or the Garden floor. Of course, I have left our a plethora of bathrooms, small storage areas, etc.
 
Well, I hope I haven't spent too much time on the base, which understandably wouldn't interest you as much as me. Anyway, on to the actual adventure...
----------------
But that part isn't relevant here. Kudos to anyone who's lasted this long.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

Wetchley House actually consists of two houses with identical exteriors, one on Earth and one in Babylon, the City of Man. Another floor exists in neither place: It's "above" the 3rd/attic floor of the Babylon half, but "below" the cellar floor of the Earth side. There's also a tower room (upper left in the illustration) whose location is a little hard to explain, but we'll get to that later.
 
Various doors, stairs and an elevator connect them. Much of the plans should be explicable from context, such as what's a door or window, stairs up or stairs down. Circles with letters and numbers in them indicate that a door or stairway operates interdimensionally. Like, where there's a circles "2b" near a half-door on a wall, that's a door from the Earth side, 2nd floor, to the Babylon side, 2nd floor. On the plan of the Babylon side, there's a corresponding "2A) marking the other side of the door (Babylon to Earth). It would have been better to use "E" and "B" for Earth and Babylon instead of "A" and "B," but at the time I never thought anyone but me and the players would see the plans. Oh well, I don't feel like changing the pictures now.
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 


 
Dean Shomshak
 
 
 

Another poster expressed interest in seeing the plans for Wetchley House, the base acquired by the PCs in my first playtest campaign for Ultimate Supermage. Fortunately, I still have them as files, so you don't have to look at scans from my crappy scanner. Well, except for the picture of the house.
 
This was a 4th ed campaign, so the plans are hex-mapped.
 
The house isn't big. I don't remember the exact book from which I adapted the plans, but there are scads of books out there such as Victorian House Plans, Classic House Plans, etc. Then I traced and spliced together bits of drawings of those houses, with a little freehanding to fill in the gaps, and made an illustration. I'll start with that:

Dean Shomshak

I cannot now recall where I heard this, but someone pushed numbers around and it seems that radiolysis of water (breaking water apart, generally into protons and hydoxyl ions, usually by gamma rays or X-rays, but other radiation can cause this to occur as well) and other substances at depth in the Earth can produce the sort of chemical disequilibrium that chemosynthetic bacteria would employ both as an energy source and as source for needed nutrients.  Protons and sulfate ions are the two big ones in the discussion I remember; we know of archaeans that get by on just those ions in terms of energy source. 
 
Radiolysis will go on in within Earth for a long, long time, with thorium-232 having a half-life of 14 Gyr.  The amount of water in the mantle isn't something I was able to find estimates for, but there is some.  Whether or not you could get life started in the deep interior is unknown, but once it invades that part (survivors of organisms that rode the subducted oceanic plates down) it could be there for keeps.  You won't make metazoans that way, but the idea that every planet might have a deep biosphere of at least this sort is worth thinking about.

Well, I am not drawing upon Roman Catholic theology.
 
 
Mmm... No. Since I don't think I can explain further without delivering a long, boring philosophy seminar. I shall simply acknowledge that much depends on definition of terms. I suspect we do not define our terms the same way.
 
There is certainly villainy in my campaign, that needs heroes to fight it. There is no supernatural force causing it or defining it.
 
Dean Shomshak

I'm aware of that, thank you. I still find the name... unpleasant.
 
Fortunately, I read Watership Down years before my father decided to make rabbits his side hustle. Meat for grocery stores, blood plasma and eyes for the UW School of Medicine, and brains for a company that, IIRC, used them to make a blood coagulant. One of my jobs was cleaning blood and membranes from the little bunny brains. But it means I can honestly include "Brain Washer" on my resume.
 
Dean Shomshak

Could be worse -- when someone asks me how I managed to pay for college, I can honestly tell that that I used to strip and grind for cash.
 
I was materials science and engineering -- spent summers working in a concrete research lab, stripping and grinding samples.  

The BBC yesterday aired a brief story about astronomers umaging the most distant galaxy yet seen. They're close to seeing the first stars, and expect the James Webb Space Telescope to do the job.
 
Dean Shomshak

Giants were opponents of the Gods in both Norse and Greek (the Titanomachy) mythologies, so those are places to look for inspiration.
 
In one setting I used, giants were an "elder race," slowly vanishing from the world, leaving behind ruins and cryptic monuments, and represented in the present by isolated individuals wielding strange powers that might be magic or technology, holding onto ancient fears, grudges, ambitions, or just habits, with tired monomaniacal zeal.

Well, I am not drawing upon Roman Catholic theology.
 
 
Mmm... No. Since I don't think I can explain further without delivering a long, boring philosophy seminar. I shall simply acknowledge that much depends on definition of terms. I suspect we do not define our terms the same way.
 
There is certainly villainy in my campaign, that needs heroes to fight it. There is no supernatural force causing it or defining it.
 
Dean Shomshak

Months back, ATC interviewed a law professor who suggested Giuliani's actions merited disbarment. I guess he called it.
 
Dean Shomshak
And apropos of nothing, after the years I spent working weekends in my father's rabbit slaughterhouse, the name "Bunny Ranch" fills me with terror and loathing.
 
Dean Shomshak

Months back, ATC interviewed a law professor who suggested Giuliani's actions merited disbarment. I guess he called it.
 
Dean Shomshak
And apropos of nothing, after the years I spent working weekends in my father's rabbit slaughterhouse, the name "Bunny Ranch" fills me with terror and loathing.
 
Dean Shomshak

Well, I am not drawing upon Roman Catholic theology.
 
 
Mmm... No. Since I don't think I can explain further without delivering a long, boring philosophy seminar. I shall simply acknowledge that much depends on definition of terms. I suspect we do not define our terms the same way.
 
There is certainly villainy in my campaign, that needs heroes to fight it. There is no supernatural force causing it or defining it.
 
Dean Shomshak