FrankL

Re: Icons: The Chrysalis Phase

Tonight is the first play session of Icons.

Yes! Please post a summary as you go.; I have been waiting for this since you started posting about it.

Re: The Tale of Instant Karma

Bummer of a cape symbol dude!

I had the same thought!

Re: Help me Populate a Cirque de Hero!

Ghost Rider fought a group called "Freakshow" once. They were all deformed in one way or another. He would up not killing any of them but gave the penance stare to the Freak Master who had enslaved them (though he called it "providing a home for those society has cast out"). Couldn't believe that I was actually crying over the way those poor people were treated. FM had provided well but he still used them horribly.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

True. I'm preserving their characters for Masks of Nyarlathotep. MWAHAHAHA

Google for that one says Africa plays a key role. Hum.... they have hyenas there.

[chanting]VI-TUS! VI-TUS! VI-TUS![/chanting]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Drhoz,

You said something about Rondale, Julius, and McGinty being the last PCs alive in your Cthulu game. I've read the posts you've made of the games and am curious what happened to the others. Last I knew, Lancaster was a brain in a jar (with player overseas, so that worked out), but Amy and Lucy just seemed to disappear from the quotes. Can you tell us what happened to them (and others whom I might have forgotten)?

BTW, you've done what I never thought possible. Based on your quotes and descriptions, I am considering adding Lovecraft to my "read-it" list. He'd be quite a ways down, and I've just started the Father Brown Omnibus.

Re: The Capes of Vibora Bay

Looking forward to reading this!

Re: Fantasy artists who do commissions

What's your budget?

I want to keep it under $50 a figure. With at least 10 characters, pulling that figure down would be fantastic.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I'm asking for a sample of on-topic.

Certainly. My apologies.

We have a character named Quake, he's a brick with a body of granite when his powers are active. Quake is smart and witty. He likes to tell people he has "chiseled features." Usually good for an eye roll. He also has this habit of quoting movies, almost always germane to the topic being discussed. Some of the PCs find this funny. Some find it a tad annoying.

Quake also has bad luck with plans. While no plan ever withstands contact with the enemy, Quake's tend to fall apart well before contact. After they've been together for a few adventures, the group gets intel of where the big-bad's HQ is and prepare for battle. Looking at a map of the walled compound, everyone trying to figure out the best way in, Quake says, "Oh yeah! Got. A. Plan!"

Everyone gets quiet.

Null Space (teleporter) says, "I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Luckily he thoughly and comprenably commented all his code right?

If so, I could almost bear it. Combine NO comments* AND non-DRY code with the above, AND crappy variable names (1 character long or two variables will differ only by the ending letter but there is no rhyme or reason as to why that letter was picked), I honestly thought he had taken this page to heart. We're a PHP place. I don't dare count the number of times I've seen:

$sql = ...; 
$result = ...; 
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result) {  
  $sql = ...;
  $resultd = ...;
  $while ($rowd = mysql_fetch_array($resultd) { ... }
}

I almost forgot. I have seen only one or two joins in any of his sql statements. Neither was an inner. There are many places where he runs a second query inside the loop to get ONE piece of data from a master table that could have just been tacked on with an inner join.

I know one thing. His new boss didn't ask for any code samples.

*any comments in his code are lines of code that didn't work or are no longer needed by order of customer.

Hey there,

A thread in the supers forum talks about artists who take commissions. Most all the pics I saw were of supers/comic book style. I am looking for an artist who does fantasy portraits. I know Storn does (and I like his work very much), but I want to explore the options before I shell out money. I have many characters that I would like to have done.

Thank you,

Frank

Hey,

There's a thread in champions about artists who do commissions. Understandably, the artists named showcase supers. Does anyone know of good, commissionable artists who specialize in fantasy? I know Storn likes to do fantasy, and I like his material a lot. But I could have quite a few commissions eventually and want a unified feel to the set so don't just want to take the first artist I find.

Thanks for your help.

Frank Luke

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I've got that feeling at work. I just took a new job as a web developer and my predecessor (whose code I have inherited) was completely unaware of the concepts of Code Cleanup or refactoring or even putting common code in libraries.

Ouch.

Yep. I pulled code that differed only in 3 text strings (yes, text strings) from 29 places in 25 files for one app the other day. Those 9 lines went into a function (with the strings passed as parameters) into a new concept--a shared library!

My predecessor was the king of copy-and-paste.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I finally feel like I'm playing Cthulhu.

I've got that feeling at work. I just took a new job as a web developer and my predecessor (whose code I have inherited) was completely unaware of the concepts of Code Cleanup or refactoring or even putting common code in libraries.

Re: Query's Art & Stuff Thread

Just read "8-Ball" preview. Fantastic read. Any chance of seeing more? [repped]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Last night was, I suspect, the last session for my S-Squad Champions campaign, and I was tying up the few remaining loose ends.

Sad to hear that. I've enjoyed the S-Squad tales. Maybe it's the end of one campaign and the beginning of another... A man can dream, anyway.

Re: A Pale Reflection

Garrett he's here. He's staying.

Bolt while this would explain his feeling of never being quite at home, he would stay put.

Re: Undead Labor: why not?

Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay, Going Postal, and Making Money explore using golems for cheap labor. They are used mostly in places where they aren't seen. Working underground pumps, spinning mills when there is no wind. At least one worked in a butcher shop. They are cheap. They don't tire. They can be repaired. They also made an excellent fire fighting force. In Going Postal, the post office is set on fire and the golems (being impervious to fire) simply walk in and remove things that are flammable, break down walls that are on fire, and take them elsewhere. "Gladys" also becomes a custodian and is eventually seen as "just one of the girls" at the post office.

One of them, Mr. Pump, functions as a parole officer. As "Mr. Pump does not tire. Mr. Pump does not eat. Mr. Pump does not sleep." his catching a violator is seen as "inevitable." If the violator goes overseas, Mr. Pump will simply walk under the water to get there.

They also made fantastic postmen.

Re: Fantasy Art Thread

Wait' date=' wait, wait. That is a girl. In actual, functional armor. No skin showing, no chainmail bikini, no... You call that fantasy? (I kid, obviously, and props to you for not going after the usual "armor of distraction" look.)[/quote']

 

Yep. No breastsplate there.

Re: Need help with race names

Sorry. I have been away for a while and meant to respond earlier.

Thanks to everyone for all the ideas. I had things figured out until I returned today.

The Sachalin rebelled from their elvish masters around 1200 years ago. They do have their own language, but since their throat, mouth, and tongue are human shaped, they can pronounce any of the human sounds. They had been created as slaves about 400 years before that.

If you like the Latin sounding names, consider that the cat people might have kept them, the same way Americans took Uncle Sam and turned him from a joke into a national icon. Sometimes people take pride in how far they have come or want a reminder of the way things were before so they don't let it happen again. If that is the case, the cat people may have adopted their "original" names as both a mnemonic and as a way to thumb their noses at their oppressors.

I can see Amerosh I standing on the top of a city wall, holding up the elven general he defeated during their rebellion, and throwing him back down into the city, roaring out, "We are LEONINE!" The jubatine and tigrine leaders standing next to him would roar similarly.

I still have the racial slur "furry." Had a bandit refer to a Leonine by that once. The bandit survived the ordeal but has new scars that exist in sets of 4 parallel to one another.

Hi,

I've recently published a story in Cross and Cosmos, and then I noticed a problem with it. In "The Strong Survive," the names of the breeds of Sachalin aren't very good. The Sachalin wouldn't think of themselves as "lion-headed," "tiger-headed," or "cheetah-headed." Outsiders might think of them along those lines, but they themselves wouldn't.

I've been playing with the names but want some feedback and other thoughts before I decide.

The Sachalin are a felinoid race. They were formed by dark magic blending human and one of three giant cat species. They have humanoid body shapes (no tails, though) with fur and claws. Those coming from lion blends have golden fur (the men grow manes during adolescence, the women have hair from birth). Those from tiger blends have tiger stripes and no hair for men but women do. The "cheetah" breed has spots and the same hair issues as tigers.

My first thought was to start from the Latin name of each. Lions are Panthera leo, tigers are P. tigris, and cheetahs are Acinonyx jubatus. Leonine and tigrine point the way without the problems of lion-head and tiger-head, but jubatine is going to cause confusion. Maybe that's okay, or would be okay if the other two were likewise different.

Another possible problem with working off the Latin names is that the mage who first made them was an elf who lived during the Elven Empire (which has a very Latin feel to it). After the Sachalin slaves revolted and left the Empire to govern themselves, they shook off everything elvish. I don't think they would keep the names for themselves that their oppressors gave them.

It's been suggested that the names be completely foreign for each. I prefer to avoid forcing my readers to do mental mapping, but sometimes it's necessary (my stories even have the same months of the year and seasons as our world to keep mapping down). But I can see how in this case, completely foreign might be best. Maybe playing with the German (or other European, non-Latin descendant) names for the three.

Any thoughts, please?

Hey there,

Having trouble figuring out how to express this on a char sheet.

The character has the ability to see death on people. If a person is going to die of natural causes within 24 hours, he (and only he) sees a skull floating over their face. If a person makes a decision that will lead to their death within 4 hours, the same thing happens. If someone decides to kill another within that time, the target also gets the skull. PC has no control over it, and it isn't always accurate. There are times when the skull appears but there is no death (75% accuracy). At the same rate, there are times when someone dies without PC seeing the skull.

PC can also see ghosts when others can't. Clairvoyance?

Reason PC has this: his uncle, a powerful necromancer, marked him on his ninth birthday, hoping to draw him into the magic. PC has no idea this is the reason and considers it a curse.

Any thoughts? Thank you!

Re: Dimensional Crossover

Realized I forgot to add my chars.

Garrett has to try to return home. This isn't right. Even if he seems happy in the pictures he finds, this isn't home. Even though his wife is gone and his son is dead back home, he believes in playing the cards you are dealt.

Bolt is a high school senior. There's a lot going on here if he's married. First he would look around to find out if this was a "have-to" marriage. Unlikely as he has strong religious convictions, then again, that's in the regular dimension. If there is a child in the picture, break out the smelling salts, because he's going to pass out at the thought of being a dad while still in high school.

Then there's the question of who. There are only two options in his past. Teammate Tracy, whom he dated while he was on the outs with Nicci (the other possibility). Really doesn't matter in what he does next-he would attempt to return home. He would not give in to the teenage hormones rushing in his body at the mere thought that it would be legal. He didn't say the vows, his alternate did (lucky devil!). That wouldn't be right.

Re: WWYD - Killer in the fold

Garrett has had this happen before on his teams. He would do the same thing this time as then. He would turn the killer in.

Bolt turn him in.

Re: Past and Future collide

Bolt has always felt like he was born in the wrong time anyway. He would use the opportunity to travel around and see if he fits better in other times.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

I've read this whole thread and it's been amazing the users that come and go. I especially miss the posts from Dr. Anomoly. But there are still incredible stories being told.

I have a question for DrHoz. I know Lancaster is currently a brain in a jar and that's why the character hasn't had any quotes in ages. Is that because the player was going to be unable to attend sessions for an extended time?