Hermit

More Map (this one connects to the east side of the one above.)

 

"but overall it was still a good lesson"

From everything I've been hearing about the coronavirus, these announced policies sound wrong-headed. Banning overseas foreign visitors while allowing free traffic from the United States is like trying to bail out a leaking boat with a sieve. Screening at airports for symptoms won't catch the majority of infected who are asymptomatic. This isn't science, it's a PR stunt to try to calm the stock market.

Fever broke last night. I'm going to be okay.

"You can fly?" 
 
"Sometimes," said the little girl. She smiled as she floated lazily in the air. "If I have fairy dust."
 
Hermione scrunched her face in disapproval. Fairies were bad business as far as she was concerned. 
 
"That's amazing," said Violet. 
 
"Indeed," said the cat as he flew in a loop up to meet Wendy's face. "I never met a flying girl before. Do you like tea?"
 
"I adore tea!" she said happily as she bounced in the air.
 
"Too bad we don't have any tea," said Frodo, not for the first time, or the last. 
 
"Oh," said Wendy sadly as she sank to the ground. 
-------
I wasn't going to go this direction, but with my last option pick she's still here, so I select Wendy Darling from Peter Pan.
 

 
Title forthcoming. 
 
 
 

This doormat is going viral, or so I hear.
 

Straight up Ranger DM< with maps, See?

 

I'm good.

During the discussion on the thread, The Turakian Age is Seriously Underrated, it was brought to my attention that not only were many folks unfamiliar with that fantasy setting published by Hero Games, but the degree to which other books in the Fantasy Hero line were directly connected to it, providing supporting elaboration for various facets of its world. It occurred to me that Hero's signature sci-fi setting might also suffer from a similar misconception. Just as with the Turakian Age, most of Hero's science-fiction books use the Terran Empire as their default reference, in some cases even more than their fantasy books do for TA.
 
The centerpiece of the line is, or course, the Terran Empire source book. While the majority of the book details this future era when Humanity has forged a major interstellar empire from a human perspective, it also spends considerable time surveying the history, culture, and technology of other races of the galaxy, major and minor, including character templates. Not everyone has noticed that Steve Long co-wrote TE with sci-fi author and game designer, James Cambias, who brings his rich imagination and narrative style to the project.
 
Scourges Of The Galaxy, written by Jason Walters, provides extensive backgrounds and full games stats for a host of NPCs, solo or part of organizations, drawn directly from the galaxy of the TE era. In many cases they're elaborations of people or groups mentioned in Terran Empire. Another book, Worlds Of Empire, surveys nearly two dozen alien planets both within and outside the Empire. Quite a few of those are notably exotic compared to Earth. The environment and geography of each planet is laid out, including planetary Mercator projection maps. In a number of cases the planets have native inhabitants, whose history and culture are spelled out in even richer detail than in the core book. Spacers Toolkit provides descriptions, stats and, often, illustrations for even more weapons, equipment, and vehicles used during the Terran Empire era, both by humans and aliens.
 
Other Hero books, while not set in the TE era, build on precedents established for the Hero Universe's future. Alien Wars by Allen Thomas rolls the timeline back a few centuries, to the human race's protracted war for survival versus the horrific Xenovores. Besides providing a less "imperial" human society, the book adds even more alien races to the galaxy's population.
 
Shifting out of the Star Hero line, Champions Beyond elaborates the "space/cosmic" side of the company's present-day, superhero-dominated Earth, by infusing most of the aliens from their sci-fi books (adjusted for this earlier period in their history), and adding even more. Nearly eighty species are mentioned in that book, with details ranging from a couple of paragraphs up to multi-page chapters which include home world description comparable to what's in Worlds Of Empire, history, culture, technology, and representative individuals. CB also introduces such classic comic-book sci-fi features as super-advanced aliens, planet-eaters, and "cosmic entities."
 
For a "Legion of Superheroes" - type campaign, Galactic Champions moves the time line forward past the Terran Empire period, to when Mankind and other interstellar civilizations have formed a vast Galactic Federation. Various "superheroes" and "supervillains" are provided, again based on the history and races established throughout Hero's space books.
 
The Hero Games website used to host several free supplements to its Star Hero line, which can still be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Several forms for help creating and recording info about alien species, planets, and star sectors are linked to here. You can also download a simple application to randomly generate sectors of your own galaxy, based on the tables from the Star Hero genre book, from here. Finally, on this webpage you'll find links to free color "astropolitical" maps of the Milky Way galaxy at the time of the Terran Empire, in several sizes/resolutions.

My school is providing box lunches (and breakfasts). Student comes in, gives their code, takes the box and leaves. In and out in under a minute.
 
It's not ideal, but it's better than kids not eating.

With regular Sunday night gaming cancelled due to COVID-19 based social distancing, I've decided to re-read the Adventures of Fish Guy.  With outside activities canceled for the near future, I may decide to use my now-free time to throw together Book 2. 

THAT FACEBOOK POST ATTRIBUTED TO STANFORD UNIVERSITY, describing how to self-test and avoid the coronavirus, IS A FRAUD:
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/viral-social-media-posts-offer-false-coronavirus-tips/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/theres-a-facebook-coronavirus-post-going-viral-claiming-to-be-from-stanford-dont-believe-it/
 
Here's the actual Stanford University webpage regarding COVID-19: https://stanfordhealthcare.org/stanford-health-care-now/2020/novel-coronavirus.html

Props to Canada.

Option: Dolores Jane Umbridge (Harry Potter series), supporting character
 

My town (Hillsboro) had the first cases in Oregon.  I'm not aware of the current numbers for Hillsboro, Washington County, or Oregon.  
 
Oregon's governor has halted gatherings of 250 or more people, and has closed schools starting on Monday, to reopen April 6th.  Pursuant to this, GameStorm (my local convention) has been at the very least postponed, if not canceled entirely for this year.  They're still trying to figure out if and when it will happen.  This was not unexpected. 

My son is on an extended spring break; my wife had shoulder surgery on Feb. 21, with a four week recovery period off work, so she's been at home most of the time.  The university she works at is halting on-site classes starting Monday, and will be moving to online classes for at least the near future.  
 
My family and I are good right now; no symptoms so far. 

I have family that includes Trump's cult. No they don't blame him one whit for bad handling of this.

Character: Bunnicula
 

"What was that?" asked Violet, shuddering.
 
Shaking, Hermione asked, "Do you mean the low growling or the dark chanting?"
 
A voice floated toward them through the mists.
 
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjubb bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
 
"The What?" asked Frodo. "What is a Jabberwock?"
 
"What is a Bandersnatch?" echoed Coraline.
 
"What is Frumious??" said Alcatraz, practically screaming.
-------
Option pick, the pursuing beast that threatens at every turn, The Jabberwock!
 

 
 

I need two more heroes and two more options. I would like to option the Orient Express.
CES