DusterBoy

Re: Classic Fantasy

If we're going with Russian myths, the leshi will give you serious grief if you start messing with his forest. In fact, you may never leave . . .

PS: Edain, you really spell Caine, K-A-N-E

(As Karl Edward Wagner could tell you and he was still alive . . . RIP, Karl)

Re: No Horses For You

Ah, now we get to Sir Arthur C Clarke and his belief that a compact version of the elephant would be an excellent choice for short-range personal transport. It is the only quadruped capable of precision handling operations - a job they are already used for in South-east Asia, at least.

And I like elephants.

Re: Fantasy Hero Resources page

THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS! Sweeeeet!

CTaylor, I just had a major nostalgia-fest and you are hereby repped.

:thumbup:

Re: No Horses For You

According to wikipedia (so place what faith in this you will) bronze is stronger (harder) than wrought iron. Archeologists suspect that migrations around 1200 BCE to 1100 BCE disrupted the trade in tin and precipitated the Iron Age. Then ironworking techniques improved, with better quality iron and then, of course humans learned to make steel, which holds a sharper edge longer, than bronze.

Re: Gods and Saints

A good book to check out is Manfred Lurker's "A Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons." It is very thorough and informative, but does not include Christian theology although it does include an entry on Yahweh/Jehovah.

Another book I have is David Hugh Farmer's "An Oxford Dictionary of Saints", organised in the same manner as the above.

Hope you can track these down.

Re: No Horses For You

About Elvish/fey vulnerability to cold iron, in "Lords and ladies", Terry Pratchett says that amongst other things, it disrupts their ability to sense a magical variant of magnetic fields described as lines of glittering silver, an ability which explains how they can never get lost.

Re: If you act, as you think . . .

The thing with the leaf sounds like something out of a John Woo movie . . .

Re: Active Points For Spell Builds

(Noob cautiously raises his hand) "Sir," he asks deferentially, "What does PwS mean?"

Re: More fun with Morty the Incompetent Mugger

Rolling on the floor, laughing. Except for the thing with the monster or turning Morty into a frog. That's just wrong.

"Can we really do that?" he [Durnik] asked

"Yes," Beldin said "but it's not worth the trouble. Frogs multiply at a ferocious rate. I'd rather have one person who irritated me that a million or so aggravating frogs."

David Eddings, The Seeress of Kell, p81.

Re: Whatever Can Go Wrong

Someone's seen ST:TOS "Devil in the Dark" a few too many times . . .

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

What I would find interesting would be a fantasy world which was modern or quasi-modern in which the Orcs had at one point followed a Dark Lord but had been defeated and had their dark master destroyed.

 

Orcs are now a neutral race like any other but they still carry the shame and stigma of having had a Dark Lord phase. Basically a parallell of 20th Century Europe in that respect with the defeated Orcs standing in for the Germans.

 

It might be quite interesting as a way of exploring the true nature of good and evil and the effects of prejudice in a fantasy setting.

 

Alternatively this could just be an excuse for the kind of scene where a cunningly concealed Elf watches a band of Orcs entering the Elven Forests. He doesn't fill them full of arrows however, he just sits on a branch muttering to himself. "Don't mention the war! Don't mention the war!"

I've had the same sort of idea. Kind of like LoTR but set thousands of years after Sauron's defeat -ish. The orcs (I called 'em Uroks - I know, so sue me) were having to live as best as they could, since they had essentially been bred solely for war and slowly making themselves skilled at other things. Whenever someone asks one of them "Why did you serve the Dark Lord?" the answer was always "You don't understand, he was our God."

And it should be good for more than just Fawltey Towers references. Even if you can't get the staff these days.

Re: Whatever Can Go Wrong

But then some idiot will still try to install it the wrong way - without bothering to read the instructions first. (yet another of Murphy's Laws IIRC)

Trust me - human stupidity has no limits, which is terrifying, because human intelligence seems to run up against its limitations pretty quickly.

(Did I say that right?)

Re: Whatever Can Go Wrong

Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, usually at the most inconvenient moment."

O'Toole's corollary to Murphy's Law: "Murphy was an optimist."

Re: Classic Fantasy

Real vampires (ie: the ones in folklore and mythology) aren't affected by sunlight. Some, like the Polish and Russian vampires were active from midday to midnight and Dracula himself appears in daylight in the original novel, albeit with reduced powers. The myth about vampires being unable to stand the sun was invented by FW Murnau for "Nosferatu". The idea is quite logical: vampirs are creatures of evil and so vulnerable to God's sunlight. Plus it was an excuse for some cool (for the time) SFX.

Re: No Horses For You

Anyway' date=' getting back to the horse/no-horse thing, I think a spell that turns horses into savage, man-eating beasts, cast by an evil cleric on an adventuring party at an inopportune moment, would be a really mean (but fun) trick.[/quote']

 

You are one sick puppy . . . but that's just sheer genius.

 

Repped

Re: How Do I Build It Question

And it only worked as long as no-one removed his purple helmet (oo-er!)

Freudian, anybody?

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts

It also doesn't take into account that Steve can only afford to do so much research

LOL! There is also something called stav - in this context it can be summed up as Viking martial arts - although it encompasses much more than that.

Re: And off we go!

This is an excellent series :thumbup: but I do have one tiny niggle.

Mark, there's no such sword as a flauberge - I think you mean flamberge.

(I told you it was tiny)

Re: No Horses For You

How about a stallion for a destrier, mare or gelding for general use and a mule for pack use - or is this over-complicating things?

And what if your stallion gets the hots for the mare?

Re: No Horses For You

Yeah, people treating horses like cars or motorbikes was what made Terry Pratchett come up with golem horses (Making Money).

Horses are beautiful animals, but they seem to be awfully fragile - and stupid.

A good thing to read is Poul Anderson's "On Thud and Blunder". Germane here is the fact that stallions don't make good mounts, at least for women, since stallions become uncontrollable around women when they're menstruating (apologies if this word gives offence). A mare or gelding is a better choice. Also it mentions that fact that any horse untrained for battle will become unmanagable. If a cavalryman was trained from birth, so was his horse. it's an essay loaded with gems like that, although I don't agree with all his conclusions.

If I had a horse, I'd walk it for most of the time and rest it as much as I could. I'd gallop it only when I had to.

There's a dman good reason predators don't get used as mounts. They're likely to see their riders as food . . .

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts

Aikido only would work on a comic book,Kun fu wont even work there. Sure,against a man who dosent know how to fight,anything will work.

 

Brazilian jujitsu,Luta libre and Grecoroman-wrestling for grappling and submissions. Muay Thai and Boxing for standing. What professional fighters use today is a mixture of all that.Its called Mixed Martial Arts. If you dont belive me, watch the UFC or PrideFc.

 

Now, since this is Comics, i will go with Kun Fu and Pro-Wrestling. Nothing can beat a rock botton!! if you smell what the Rock is cooking!!.

If you had seen Kanetsuka Morehei (the guy who taught my aikido sensei), you'd take back that initial comment. The guy could just work magic - you couldn't get close to him without winding up on the floor.

Plus, he'd worked in mental hospital, and had much opportunity to use his art for real.

Re: Karate Kid vs Karate Kid

That advert is wrong, diddly-wong-wrong-wrong.

It's also absolutely hilarious

Re: Have you written a story?

All my characters started out as an idea for a story. The first, original idea was that seven kids see a meteorite crash and to to see what's up. It's an alien meteorite, they get too close and get zapped. They get reported missing and a big ole search is conducted. Eventually they get found near the meteorite (which is now just a lump of rock) and get taken to hospital. When they come round, it is discovered they have superpowers.

It was meant to be the S Club 7 of superteams (gah! ) via the X-Men.

It's changed considerably since then. Six of them were easy

Tom (Challenger) is based off Damage (brickette/energy manipulator)

Lisa (Maze) is based off Jean Grey (TK and telepathy)

Wang (Slider) is based off Ice Man (ice and cold powers, duh)

Darren (Maverick) is based off Grunge from Gen13 (absorption powers)

Josh (Blitz) is based off the Flash with a little Impulse (the speedster)

Surinda (Saranyu) is based off Storm or Rainmaker (weather manipulator)

it's Jen Sinclair who is giving me headaches. I can't decide on her powers, even though she's meant to BE THE LEADER OF THE TEAM! AARGH!

I haven't even got a common background. I mean you got two white guys, two white women, a black man, a Chinese guy and a third generation Hindu woman. Is college/uni a good excuse to get them together in the first place?

please

Re: Silent Shadow of the Bat-Man

And the Joker was inspired by Conrad Veidt in "The Man Who Laughs". In fact, I believe that this is referenced when Heath Ledger's Joker gives his "origin story" in "The Dark Knight".

Re: Purple Powers

[Hendrix]Hazy[Hendrix]