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Cancer

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  10. The last sesssion

    in General Roleplaying

    Posted

    On 5/24/2024 at 11:00 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

    Eventually, you're going to reach the point at which you no longer play RPGs.  Its usually pretty late in life, ....

    You'll likely never know when that day will come.  Just make sure its not a quit over some stupid little thing or a rules fight.  Go out with fun and glory with your friends, make every session one you remember fondly.

     

    For my wife, her last session was Saturday, Dec 16, last year.  She probably rather suspected it was going to be her last; her illness was taking strong and unpleasant turns for the worst about then.

     

    Given that we'd met through that gaming group back in 1988 or 89, became a couple in 1991, and married in 1992 ... the payoffs can be literally life-long.

  17. Answers & Questions

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Asperion said:

    A: That was made from inverse particles. 

     

    Q: [background singing: "It's Anti-Doody Time, it's Anti-Doody Time, it's Anti-Doody Time, ....]

     

        [Foreground announcer:] "Hello, boys and girls, do you know what time it is?  That's, right, it's ... Anti-Doody Time!  And here are our hosts, Anti-Doody and Unpeakable Swords!"

     

    A: There's highly charged debate about weak neutral currents.

  19. Ctrl+V

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    This document is reviewing things you learned in the session of 24 May 2024, once you made it to your destination on Sumatra.

     

    That destination is the port of Dumai, a town of about 1200 permanent residents, a population that is swollen during the trading season (late March through May).  You arrived in that port on Wednesday, 15 April 781 AD, which is also 29 Hijjah 183 in the Islamic calendar.  Both Hijjah and Muhavran (which follows it) are sacred months, when war is forbidden, though Muslims are permitted to defend themselves against those who violate this.  Hijjah closes out the Islamic year, so the day after you arrive is the first day of the Islamic year 184.

     

    There is a mosque in Dumai which the Muslims among you can attend.  There are also shrines of most other faiths: Buddhist is the principal one.  There is not, however, either a Christian church or a synagogue in this town.

     

    (BTW: Since the months in the Islamic calendar start with the sighting of the new crescent moon, there's a one-to-one correspondence between day of the month and phase of the Moon.  Full Moon is always the 12th, 13th, or 14th, and New Moon the 28th or 29th.)

     

    Your appointed trade partner, the Chinese merchant Deng Cho, had not yet arrived.  He said a few months ago that he was interested in receiving your African wood, ivory, and animal skins.  It is clear that by getting your entire cargo of these commodities, he makes bigger profits than if he has smaller lots.  

     

    (Dumai is a compromise location for you and Deng Cho, being a little ways up the Strait of Malacca from its southern end.  With your arrival in the middle of April, you have about a month and a half before the summer monsoon should start and you ought ot set out for home, around the start of June.)

     

    Deng Cho will bring a larger ship than yours, but he'll have a load of three different sorts of Chinese ceramics and porcelain which can take up all your cargo space.  One is the delicate and rare but highly esteemed Jingdezhen porcelain, of which he will bring a few carefully-packed pieces of high value.  The second is Xing ware, which is usually white with a clear-to-bluish glaze.  It also is well valued in Arabia, though the limited color palette in which it comes means it does not command the high prices of the Jingdezhen porcelain.  The last type comes in large quantities and is the familiar blue-and-white ceramic ware, cheaply made, but exotic enough in Arabia, Africa, and Europe that it also brings large profits to the Arabian merchant.  You are planning on having perhaps all of your return cargo tonnage be these ceramics, with modest but highly valuable quantities of spices or other rare commodities.

     

    The rest of your cargo consists of highly valuable but small jars of saffron and cochineal, and twenty tons of alum in casks.  The last is an industrial commodity, a dye fixative, sought after by dyers in China.  It is all but certain that you'll need to find different traders to make a good return on the saffron, the cochineal, and the alum.

     

    You made contact with Barang Paranadang, whose aspects include "Master Spice Merchant of Dumai" and "Scholar of Spices".  He is an affable sort and very knowledgeable about the spices, dyes, and medicinal powders originating in the Indonesian islands.  He is free with his descriptions and virtues of these wares, but rather less forthcoming about where they come from and how he gets them.  He is a candidate for buying your own parcels of spice and dye, though you did not mention those to him.  He also is able to direct you to local healers, who may be able to say more about the medicinal merits of things one can buy here.

     

    The port commissioner was an earnest and efficient sort who did not seek a bribe from you, though you did tip him to get a central berth in the merchant wharves.  As is customary here, your port fees entitle you to stay in this harbor until the June solstice, or until you leave the port, whichever happens first.  The harbor guards seem competent and adequately diligent.  You also met the commander of the Srivijayan navy's local squadron, Commodore Barito Kuala.  A scion of the royal family, he seems to take his duties of suppressing pirates and enabling safe trade quite seriously.  He looks over all the merchant ships in the harbor and speaks with the captains, both to receive reports of any pirate activity they witnessed or experienced, and to be sure that they are actual merchants and not just pirates looking to do mayhem and/or plunder in the port.  It was not explicitly stated, but these interviews could well be repeated as the arrival season goes on.

     

    In the Arabian Nights card draw for arriving at Dumai, your captain (Reed's character) was attentive enough to avert an accident in the street, and all the more fortunate that the near-victim of a trampling was a young woman of the royal house.  This gained him a cash reward, and induction into the lowest order of merit in the kingdom, which lets him wear a distinctive sash that the locals recognize as marking a minor hero.  This "Robe of Honor" is a single-use aspect for him that he can use to access assistance or a favor from an official in Srivijaya (anywhere in the kingdom, not just this port).

     

    You heard the name of a perhaps regionally infamous pirate, Geelong the Orangutan of Java.  This pirate has a reputation for taking -- and keeping for himself -- particularly high-value items from the ships he plunders.  "Of Java" is all you heard initially about his whereabouts, but he seems to have made his presence known in much of the heavy-traffic waters in this region.  The players expressed interest in learning more about this fellow.

     

    Dumai is not a large town.  It bustles with folk from all over Asia in the springtime between the monsoons, the political hub of the kingdom (Srivijaya itself) is near the modern city of Palenbang, which on one of the maps I've provided is near but further inland and a bit further south than the spot labeled "Gaung".    Some overland travel will be needed should you decide to go there, no matter what.

     

    Other things I made note of for fleshing out for next session is inquiries of local healers vis-a-vis actual virtues of varous medicinal substances; more depth and detail about the spices from the perspective of your Wood Mage; and more about Geelong the Orangutan.  If there's something I have overlooked, send word.

     

    Finally, I attach two map files I stole off the web.  All the placenames on these maps are modern.  The green map is from an oceanographic paper, but the left panel in that map shows the Strait of Malacca and Malayan Peninsula, most of Sumatra; the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are also shown, with these making the arc between about 7 degrees latitude and 14 degrees, curving through 93 degrees longitude; the Andamans (where the party revictualled) are north of 10 degrees latitude, and the Nicobars south of that.  The blue map zooms in more on the straits,  and for convenience I am using the modern name (Dumai) for the harbor the party is trading in.  Everything in the blue map, plus area further north on both the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, as well as much of Java to the south and east, are controlled by the Srivijayan Kingdom, whose capital is in southern Sumatra.

     

  20. The cranky thread

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Cancer

    After finding myself sleepy at the end of a computer game, I laid down for a nap.  Went down hard.  Woke up a bit before six, looked at the clock, and assumed it was AM; had coffee and a muffin.  (Yes, I'm getting up that early most days; Fluff Butt wants his breakfast promptly.)  Took me almost three hours before I figured out it was still Saturday.  Woof.

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