tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89620525306921488622024-02-18T21:59:06.367-08:00Bravo Charlie SierraBravo Charlie Sierra - a blog about life, friendship, and who I am.BrieCShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09759011454975638181noreply@blogger.comBlogger175125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-33001029296254152182014-01-24T13:49:00.003-08:002014-01-24T13:49:59.717-08:00I started a new blog!<small><span style="font-size: small;">From now on, you can find my posts on briecs.blogspot.com . I've done some interviews and a few posts already, so head on over to check them out!</span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-53199478801722180932013-12-28T12:08:00.001-08:002013-12-28T12:08:31.189-08:00Interview with Whitney Beltrán - Tinker Kickstarter<small><span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i><b style="background-color: #444444;">I interviewed Whitney Beltrán about her upcoming work on <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/containmentfield/tinker-steampunk-web-series" target="_blank">Tinker, a steampunk web series production currently Kickstarting with a few days left. </a></b></i></span></small><br />
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<b style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Tell me a little about Tinker - what's it about? </span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><i>Tinker </i>is a steampunk adventure themed web series show. It is about a father-daughter duo, Sho and Kimi Tinker, who are savvy inventors in Victorian era alternate history San Fransico. Sho has built a reputation for himself as an incredibly clever engineer, and Kimi is a sort of genius tomboy. Together, they are swept up into a world of intrigue and turn of the century Machiavellian power struggles as old empire and emergent capitalistic entities fight over resources and technology. <br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Their adventures range all over, from their native San Fransico to Hong Kong to the British mainland. There are air ships and giant robot fights and organized brothel gangs, spies, assassination attempts (and successes!), romance, action, and needless to say, a lot of danger. There is never a dull moment in <i>Tinker</i>.</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">What do you think is the most interesting part of Tinker?<br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">I'm biased. I will always go gaga over the costuming on a project like this. Our costume designer is extremely talented and is currently putting the finishing touches on a hand tooled leather corset that is to die for. I basically want to run away with it. However, in reality, probably one of most interesting things about <i>Tinker</i> is its exploration of morality in the face of Western expansion and globalization. <i>Tinker</i> does not take itself too seriously. It's more of a romp than a thinker, but the undertones are there. </span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">How did you get involved in Tinker?</span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Well, I tend to have my fingers in a lot of cookie jars. I was NPCing for a LARP that was going on as part of a fundraiser benefit that an education non-profit, Seekers Unlimited, was putting on in L.A. I made friends with one of the other NPCs, who happened to have a role on<i>Tinker</i>. At the time they were looking to fill a number of roles, so she arranged for me to visit the studio. I read some sides for the producer, and I landed the role of Elmira Perkins, who happens to be one of the nefarious spies! </span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Do you enjoy working on indie productions? If so, why?<br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Absolutely. I do a lot of script work and setting development as well as acting, and big Hollywood is awful about crushing creative sovereignty. At the major production houses pretty much everything is decided by a committee of business school graduates. It's very frustrating. Working with smaller studios is more like working with a family, and negotiating with creative ideas becomes a lot more enriching. </span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Do you think the diversity of Tinker is important? Do you think it was a conscious choice?<br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">The racial diversity of the cast of <i>Tinker</i> is off the charts. It's one of the things that makes me most proud of being a part of this production. I am of biracial Mexican-American heritage. I often struggle to find roles. It is common that the roles I am suited for call for white women. I constantly have to think to myself, "Am I white enough to get away with this?" Sometimes I am, and sometimes I'm not. Being on the set of<i>Tinker</i> is a breath of fresh air. I don't have to worry about the color of my skin and whether or not I stand out.<br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">It's also really significant to me that the main characters are Asian and not white. It is the norm in Hollywood that racial minorities are relegated to supporting roles. This is especially significant because this is a steampunk production, which necessarily carries strong elements of imperialism and colonialism. It would have been really easy to stick with a homogenous cast. Instead, our executive producer, Micheal Taglianetti, insisted on a racially diverse cast. So yes, it was a conscious choice. </span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">What are you looking forward to most in the project?<br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">I don't know if I should tell you this! There is going to be an episode that involves live zebras. I am really looking forward to hanging out with zebras. I've never gotten closer than being at the zoo before. I just hope they don't bite. </span></span></div>
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<b><i style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Thanks, Whitney, for your interview and time! Go check out <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/containmentfield/tinker-steampunk-web-series" target="_blank">Tinker's Kickstarter </a>if you want to learn more!</span></i></b></div>
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<small><span style="background-color: #444444; color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010-2013. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="background-color: #444444; color: #cccccc; font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-9947515720825333462013-12-11T07:07:00.000-08:002013-12-12T07:42:00.497-08:00Interview with David Pulver - Laboratory of the Forsaken!<small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Today I have a brief interview with David Pulver, a freelance writer in Canada, just for you! David is working on an adventure game for <a href="http://www.crafty-games.com/" target="_blank">Crafty Games</a>' <a href="http://www.crafty-games.com/node/348" target="_blank">FANTASY CRAFT </a>Roleplaying system called "<a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/123617/Laboratory-of-the-Forsaken&affiliate_id=71282" target="_blank">Laboratory of the Forsaken</a>".</span></i></small><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /> B: David, do you want to tell me a little about Laboratory of the Forsaken?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />D: The soon to be released "Laboratory of the Forsaken" is my first adventure for Crafty Game's FANTASY CRAFT roleplaying system.<br /><br />It takes place in the Realm, the same setting used in their earlier TIME OF HIGH ADVENTURE book, which features a conflict between the Circle (free-thinking but occasionally out of control scientist-arcanists) and the Church (nice folks unless you get on the bad side of their inquisitors).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The adventurers get to investigate the manor house of Doctor Magnus Croatalorn, a Circle member who has been performing experiments to investigate the origins of life. The Church has decided to shut him down (since he wants to prove life was magically rather than divinely created) but the inquisitors they sent after him haven't reported back. Magnus has also dropped out of touch with the Circle, however, so they suspect something has gone wrong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />The adventurers can either be servants of the Church sent on a follow-up mission, or agents of the Circle attempting to protect Magnus and his research before the Church can get their hands on it, or mercenaries who blunder into the situation. As they explore the manor they'll piece together its secrets from the doctor's lab notes and experiments. It's a cross between a haunted house and a dungeon adventure, with elements of dark fantasy or horror thrown into it.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />B: How long did it take you to create the adventure?</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">D: It took about two days to come up with the basic concept of a dark fantasy horror adventure set in the laboratory of a vivisectionist-alchemist who was obsessed with finding the secret origin of life. Crafty Games and I batted the concepts back and forth for a couple more weeks to set the specific details and parameters of the adventure. Then it took about a month to write it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />B: What suggestions would you have for others looking to write adventures - best practices for level design, flavor text, etc.?</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />D: For me, the key thing is to have a solid, interesting theme and concept and a careful outline. In this case the theme was mad fantasy science, so the adventure contained a lot of research notes, crazed experiments, and so on. Usually I work out a background first, but then get down to the nuts and bolts (e.g., what's where, paths through the adventure, mapping, and so on).<br /><br />It's probably best to leave flavor text for last after you have the skeleton of the adventure. I've found that if you start with the flavor text it's very easy to overwrite and end up with something that is too long.<br /><br />That said, doing a bit of flavor text first is useful to give yourself a feel for what you're doing. In my case I wrote a short biographical letter written by the mad scientist (Dr. Croatalorn) to a friend of his, laying out his philosophy, a key event in his childhood that led him away from the teachings of the Church and toward exploration of darker truths. I didn't actually use this in the game - it was a bit too long - but it gave me a sense of his character and motivations, which helped me.<br /><br />I did something similar for his wife Lunalia, who is another key character and possible ally of the adventurers in the plot.<br /><br />Ideally you should playtest an adventure, but often players will not have time to explore all the paths. A trick you can use is to "talk through" an adventure with someone else - essentially skipping all the game mechanics (assume they win all the fights, make all the skill checks, or whatever) but just narrate what they see, who they meet, and have them tell you what they do.<br /><br />This is a good way to get a sense of whether any mysteries, level design concepts and so on are too complex or too simple, and also it can sometimes reveal options and strategies you didn't think of when you wrote the adventure.<br /><br />The most difficult part of the adventure was striking a balance between a coherent, dramatic narrative (e.g., building up action and an exciting conclusion) and giving the players different routes and options. This had to be considered from the very start of the adventure, as Crafty Games Fantasy Craft setting tends to forgo a traditional good vs. evil structure in favor of different factions, any of which the adventurers could be aligned with. The adventure is set in the "Realm" background that Crafty Games introduced in their prior adventure collection Time of High Adventure. This introduced a conflict between religion and magic (The Church vs. The Circle, a group of arcane-scientists). <br /><br />This became a central conflict in Laboratory of the Forsaken, but I set up the adventure so that the players could choose which side to support, or remain neutral, and also ended up writing three different variations of the adventure's opening to accommodate different player character motivations or alignments.<br /><i><br /><br /> Thanks to David for taking the time to share with us about his writing and design process! <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/123617/Laboratory-of-the-Forsaken&affiliate_id=71282">Check out the adventure, Laboratory of the Forsaken, at DriveThruRPG</a>!</i></span><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2013. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-71307954041177450412013-11-22T07:12:00.000-08:002013-11-22T07:12:10.909-08:00Selfies<small><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></small>
<span style="font-size: small;"><small><span style="font-size: small;">Yesterday, the internet blew up with selfies. It was in response to a <a href="http://jezebel.com/selfies-arent-empowering-theyre-a-cry-for-help-1468965365" target="_blank">Jezebel article about how selfies are a cry for help, and that they aren't empowering.</a> I'm sure you can imagine my response. </span></small>However, on G+, I posted shortly thereafter a few of my fellow feminists had posted and made a call for people on my circles to share selfies because I wanted to see their faces.</span><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: small;">The response was incredible!</span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: small;">Tons of people - men and women, young and old, some who had never posted their photo on G+ - posted their photos. There were a few people who complained, stating that it was becoming like "that other social network" (Which one, I ask? MySpace, where selfies really got popular, or Facebook, where so many people still lurk?), but it didn't harsh my buzz.</span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: small;">See, I grew up initially on places like forums, Yahoo! Groups, and LiveJournal, where you didn't really share pictures of yourself. At my age (pre-teen) it was discouraged heavily - after all, what if people misused your photo, stalked you, etc.? I knew usernames and typing styles, but I didn't know faces. When people DID post their pictures, it was like pure joy. Here! Person! You are REAL and I can <i>see you</i>, and it is wonderful.</span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: small;">Yesterday was filled with joy for me. I have been dealing with some dumb emotions, and I know a lot of people going through some hard times, but there was suddenly this burst of "Hey, look at me, I exist!" All of this beauty and love and laughter and <i>joy</i>. </span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: small;">I don't know if yesterday meant anything to anyone else. It meant a lot to me.</span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010-2013. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-53177066584838321842013-10-19T13:56:00.000-07:002013-10-26T09:21:43.649-07:00The Song of My People<small><br /></small>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The leather wraps scraped across the callouses on Lilylen’s palms as she twisted the wraps around her hands. She tied them tightly. The wraps served as good protection from the wooden sticks she picked up and spun through her fingers. It was time to go, and she was nearly ready.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b id="docs-internal-guid-36da3d89-d27f-4a03-ef2f-eead98cfbaf3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lilylen stared out from the window of the holding, counting the rows of soldiers. There were near a hundred, armored and standing at the ready. Those were her chosen enemies. Chosen, yes, because there were so many different men to fight, so many threats to her home and in this case, her soul. The lord in command of these soldiers was a dark mage who had stolen the souls of his soldiers to bring himself more power. Lord Niccen, ruler of the city of Donwyn, what he called himself. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Untrue, though. She stood in the halls of Donwyn now, ready to protect it from his army of soulless men. If her side lost, then he would take over and hold the small city under thrall. This was not what she wanted. Donwyn was not her home now, but it had been for many years. She had no home, and her family had all aged away and left for the northern lights. Still, she wished to protect Donwyn, and her magic was strong. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The drum was a gift from her mother on the day of her turning. Her mother had promised her the moon, and true to her promise, the large drum was made with the whitest of leathers stretched tight and it played the deepest rumbling. Her turning was a celebration of her sixteenth anniversary of birth, and marked the day her magic came true. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now was no time for reminiscing, though. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lilylen joined the warriors below in the great hall who all were armored and ready after enjoying midnight feast. There was a small party of adventurers standing in the center of the hall. Her companions were the fighters Dor and Leaf, the magician Wend, and trickster Fig. They had come with her to Donwyn, excited for the prospect of battle and as true friends. She would owe them everything if they won this battle. She raised her voice loud.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Friends!” She clapped Dor on the shoulder. “It is time for the cries of battle and the victory! Let us feast our eyes now that we have feasted our bellies, and take down Lord Niccen and his thralls!”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her words were met with a roar of approval from the crowd. Some warriors banged swords against shields in echoing clangs while they shouted and she cheered back at them.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“That’s the spirit, my good men and women! Join me now on the field!”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The warriors began to pour out of the hall, taking their places on walls and near gates. The battle was not long off, and Lilylen’s blood began to rush in her ears. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Dor, Leaf, Wend, Fig - you are all my companions through battle again.”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Lilylen, we fight for you as much for glory.” Dor’s eyes were bright behind her raggedy bangs. “Once we finish this, we will go back to the road and beyond.”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fig slipped something sneakily into Lilylen’s hand. She looked down to see a small jeweled dagger, sheathed in shadow. She looked at Fig, raising one eyebrow in question. Fig just smiled and crossed his fingers.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“To war, to win!”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The adventurers made their way to the head of the warrior’s ranks, and Lilylen called for the gates to be opened. There was a loud creaking and clamoring as the large double gates opened, revealing the battlefield ahead. The warriors and Lilylen’s companions poured out onto the field, readying for the first light of dawn. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sun rose slow and lazily, peeking through behind the holding and shining light on the thralls. Lilylen spun her drumsticks and rolled them on the drum, creating a deep, low rumble. A light mist fell down from the sky and settled over her fellows, providing cover from the soldiers and putting a protective shield around her fellows. The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thrum thrum thrum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> echoed across the grass, and with that, the soldiers lurched forward, the warriors began to run, and they reached each other in a glorious crash.</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The warriors had the strength of their heart and home pulsing through them, and all who heard the sound of Lilylen’s drum were given more power to resist their enemies. She strode forward, slowly, between the fighting, ducking and dodging while Dor and Leaf cleared her path. She had one responsibility only: to get to Niccen. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dor and Leaf before her ran into the broken ranks of soldiers. The soldiers were technically powerful - precise in movement - but they lacked the intuitive skills of the warriors and adventurers, which failed them. In essence, they were strong only in numbers, just landscape to trample. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wend walked behind her, casting bolts of mana into the surrounding crowds of soldiers and calling down fire from the sky. Fig was nowhere to be seen, but that was best. His tricks were not to be noticed until they had already been done. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They were nearly through the soldiers, pushing through while the warriors battled against the twice-strong army. At the back of the ranks was Niccen, not even fearful enough to be on a horse, standing proudly as though he were untouchable. He caught Lilylen’s gaze and there was no emotion in his eyes but sneering cruelty. She quickened her pace, leaving Wend behind unknowingly.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She was pressing forward and focused on Niccen, continuing to drum the slow rumble, when she felt a sudden sharp pain in her back. Her breath caught, she felt something within her go empty, and she struggled to breathe. She looked around behind her only to see Fig jump out from behind a soldier and land on another man - a man holding the jeweled dagger she had been carrying. Fig slashed the man’s throat with one sharp swipe, then he collected the dagger and returned it to Lilylen’s pocket. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Be more careful!” He shouted, and the noise rang in her ears as she gasped for air. She began to lose her footing. Fig’s eyes widened and he placed his hands on her back, whispering an incantation. She felt her heartbeat pumping throughout her body, and slowly felt the pain ease and the air fill her lungs again. The battle pressed in close to them, and there were soldiers moving to attack. Lilylen braced herself.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suddenly, a clap of thunder sounded and lightning struck, spreading through the bodies of the soldiers, turning them into crisp wastes. Lilylen sighed in relief and doubled her speed, trying to make up for lost time. She reached Niccen quickly.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He didn’t even move. She stood ten feet away from him and all he did was stand there, unafraid, undaunted. She gritted her teeth, and began to pound her drum faster, harder. She opened her mouth, and the sound from inside her was a deep bellow.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long we fight and long we live,</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we do not fear the dark.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Strong we are and never gone,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we do not fear the burning light.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hold back the night,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the night so cold.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We fight so long,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">long will we live.”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She sang it again and again, her voice becoming louder and louder. Niccen stood there, quietly at first, then laughing. He did not notice the red light growing behind him, growing larger with each drumbeat. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This is your plan?” He yelled above the drumming. “Sing me to death?”</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Niccen moved his hands, muttering an incantation she couldn’t quite catch, even with her unique hearing. There were corpses around her from the battle, and they slowly raised themselves to their feet. Her breath caught in her throat, straining her voice. She found her voice again as she spun around with her drum, changing the beat and singing faster as she slammed bodily into the undead monsters surrounding her. They pressed in on her, grabbing at her clothes and scratching her face. Her heart was pounding in her head. She knew she didn’t have much longer until she would lose control, so she stopped moving and planted her feet. The song was sung.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lilylen’s voice stopped mid-verse, and she banged on the drum three times in succession, and from behind Niccen appeared a giant, red, translucent dragon. The dragon was massive, a full-sized red dragon with a long crest on it’s head. Its flesh was nothing more than red light, the body of a spirit of vengeance. Niccen turned in response to its roar, and Lilylen imagined that his eyes grew wide. The dragon devoured him in one bite, and inside the dragon Niccen tumbled into its stomach. Lilylen felt elation welling up inside her, until there was a loud pop and Niccen disappeared. She spun around in panic, running into the corpses crowding around her who toppled over, the incantation controlling them no longer held.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Fig! Dor! Leaf! Wend!” She called for her companions, who were fending off the soldiers. “He’s gone!” </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">None could hear her. In that moment, she felt a gust of wind burst against her side and tear through the leather of her drum. She gasped and turned to face Niccen, who was spinning a whirlwind. The wind blew so hard that it wrested the drum from her hands and took the air from her lungs. She felt as though her very soul was being pulled from her, but she staggered towards him, her face contorted with rage. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blood boiling and rage overtaking her, her muscles grew and flexed, and her eyes tightened as the irises turned to bright red. She felt the dagger in her pocket and pulled it out, pressing her body against the whirlwind, her rage strength allowing her to resist it’s power. She screamed and bellowed at Niccen, at the wind, at everything that was in her way of tearing the mage apart. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I will eat your soul!” Niccen cried out, and now she could hear the fear. She would always hear the fear when her rage rose within her. She breached the wall of wind and watched him tumble backwards. The look of terror on his face was all she needed to see. She tackled him and stabbed the dagger into his heart, twisting and wrenching it. The shadow of the blade spread out through his skin in a spiderweb, blackness filling his veins. She watched until the light left his eyes, hearing the crunch of cartilage and bone beneath her weight. </span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon, she felt the blood draining from her face. Her muscles weakened, and she staggered, falling to the ground beside Niccen’s blood-covered corpse. Around her, the thralls fell down, slowly but surely being overtaken by death.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She felt weightless as Dor and Leaf picked her up and carried her off the field. The warriors crowded around as she was taken to the hall. As she drifted off into weary rest, she heard the song of her people. The depth of their voices. The love in their hearts.</span></div>
<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></small>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“For life! For victory! </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For Donwyn!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cccccc;"><small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2013. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small></span><br />
<small><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY</span>.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-57340811106244662682013-10-18T11:42:00.000-07:002013-10-18T11:49:49.980-07:00Systir Productions and 616<b><i><br /></i></b><b><i>Today I have an interview with Systir Productions, a production team based in London. Amy and Victoria Howell are sisters and multi-award winning creators of 'The Syndicate' and '616', the latter of which is <a href="http://igg.me/at/616series/x/1858191">currently crowdfunding</a>.</i></b><b><i><br /></i></b><br /><b><br /> What led you to the film industry?</b><br /><br />Vicky has worked in film and theatre for the past 15 years. In fact she trained originally as an actor, then got sidetracked into writing and later to directing, but we've both grown up on films of all types - watching horror from probably a much too early age(!) and had often gone over various ideas for stories, but there was a eureka moment whilst back at our mum's house for xmas 2008 when we just said 'we should do this!' Vicky had the industry knowledge and writing experience, Amy had the business experience and the ideas so it was an obvious next step.<br /><br /> <b><br /> What made you choose to work on a webseries?</b><br /><br />We started with the intention of making films, to be honest, and the first project we wrote together was actually a feature version of the '616' concept. However, during the course of that script's development we became sidetracked into the story behind what became our first webseries, 'The Syndicate', which again we initially developed as a feature idea. When we wrote 'The Syndicate' back in 2009, there were very few webseries about, especially in the UK, but we did stumble across one which was made by the production team behind 'Torchwood' called 'Girl Number Nine' and this is what introduced us to the concept of webseries. The aspect that appealed to us initially was the ease of distribution and this is what gave us the idea of turning 'The Syndicate' into a webseries. Rather than being at the mercy of a distribution company to get your work seen, you just post it online and control the distribution yourself. And we're really glad we did that, as, if we had tried to release 'The Syndicate' as a traditional feature film we could still be sitting around now waiting for a distributor, while, by releasing as a webseries, it has now been seen by almost a million people, travelled to festivals around the world, won awards and put us in touch with Frostbite Pictures who we are now working with on producing '616'. So webseries have definitely been lucky for us!<br /><br /> <b><br /> What would you say is your favorite project you worked on, and why?</b><br /><br />Your first baby is always special, so 'The Syndicate' does hold a unique place in our hearts. It has also brought us a lot of opportunities so we're also really grateful to it and to everyone who worked on it. We learnt a lot through making 'The Syndicate' as well - a baptism of fire in a lot of ways! - and '616' is definitely benefitting from that.<br /><br /> <b><br /> What is '616' about? What makes it worth backing?</b><br /><br />'616' is a character driven, fantasy/horror webseries in the tradition of Buffy/Angel/Supernatural etc, albeit less glossy as we're British...! Although it follows in some very established traditions, with ancient evils, magic and end of the world stakes, the concept behind the story, the way this evil manifests, is, so far as we can tell, entirely unique. We've watched many a horror film in our time and we've certainly never come across it before, so that alone makes it worth backing! Like all the best ideas it's incredibly simple and you'll kick yourself when you find out what it is...! <br /><br /> <b><br /> How has your experience been as women in the industry? Do you find any impact on your success?</b><br /><br />So far, we've been very lucky and haven't really experienced any overt prejudice or discrimination as a result of being female filmmakers beyond the odd "boys' club" mentality of the occasional crew member. For the most part our gender has been completely irrelevant and that's as it should be! We have been known to surprise festival programmers though as, with the nature of our writing, they assume we're male...<br /><br /><br /><b> What do you think is the biggest contributor to your success?</b><br /><br />We don't give in. Making low and no budget projects can be like fighting bears uphill through treacle - it's hard work, it can be slow and frustrating and there is always something trying to stop you, from the weather to needing to pay the rent, but the trick is to just put your head down and keep going.<br /><br /><br /><br /> Thank you so much to Amy and Victoria! Good luck to them on the crowdfunding for '616'!<br /><br /><br /><br /><b> About Systir Productions</b><br /><br />Systir Productions is an award winning production team, based in London, and consisting of sisters Amy and Victoria Howell. Amy is a writer/producer with a ten year background in project management and Victoria is a writer/director of over fifteen years experience. They began Systir in 2008 and their first project was a multi-award winning webseries, 'The Syndicate', which, due to interest from producers they have now developed into a feature script. The script placed in the finals of the Cascade Pictures Writers' Couch Initiative in December 2012; semi-finals of the Bluecat Screenplay Competition 2013 and was a finalist for the Bluecat Cordelia Prize for best British script. Systir have also produced three short films, two of which, '616' and 'Drawn Together' are live action/animation mix and still in post production - these are due to be finished by early 2014 to be submitted to festivals. The third, '6 Shooter', was made as a competition entry for the Frightfest/Shortcuts to Hell competition 2013. <br /><br />As a result of taking 'The Syndicate' to webseries festivals in 2012, Amy and Vicky met up with Canadian webseries creator Ivan Hayden, who, with co-creators Jason Fischer and Kirk Jacques, was aiming to establish a webseries studio, Frostbite Pictures, to produce high end webseries content. Systir agreed to become the UK arm of Frostbite and are now working on their second webseries, '616', developed from their feature concept/short film of the same name. However, where the original concept was a B movie, effects laden gorefest, the webseries has been developed as a more mainstream, character driven fantasy/horror series in the tradition of Buffy/Supernatural/Grimm etc. '616' is a completely original horror concept, which has never been done - so far as we can tell! - and Systir are very excited to bring the concept to the webseries world. They are shooting just the first three episodes at present as pilot episodes with which they hope to generate production funding for a full series.<br /><br />As well as writing, directing and producing their own original content, Systir also collaborate with other webseries creators and filmmakers. Most recently, they directed and helped production manage short film 'Leads and Follows', a love story set in the world of swing dancing, and award winning comedy horror webseries 'The Bloody Mary Show', as well as assistant producing short horror film 'Anna'.<br /><br />Systir are currently crowdfunding for '616' and would love it if you could help them out! There are some great perks to be had, so please do <a href="http://igg.me/at/616series/x/1858191">follow the link</a> and check it out.<br /><br />For more information on Systir and their past projects please see their <a href="http://www.systirproductions.com/">website</a> where you can also watch their first webseries, <a href="http://www.systirproductions.com/watch-syndicate">'The Syndicate'</a>. You can also check out the trailers for their short films on the website or on their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/SystirProductions">YouTube channel</a>. If you're into social media - and who isn't these days! - follow them on Twitter -<a href="http://www.twitter.com/systiria">systiria</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/616series">616series</a> - or Facebook - <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SystirProductions">SystirProductions</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheSyndicateWebseries">TheSyndicateWebseries</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/616series">616series</a>, or link up with them on <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/systirproductions">LinkedIn</a>.<br /><br /><br /> <span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /> THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2013. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED. <br /><br />ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-85741607916851117522013-09-12T10:16:00.000-07:002013-09-12T10:16:15.505-07:00Talk about Geek Culture<br />I hear a lot about Geek Culture, and I know a lot of Geeks and a lot of geeks. I wanted to kind of ruminate (really navel-gaze) about what Geek is and what geek is and who takes on that label. This is all just my stuff so I don't really care too much if people agree, I just felt like writing it.<br /><br />First, I don't think anyone has to be a geek or that they should be labeled one without wanting to be one. I do think that people can participate in Geek culture without being a geek or a Geek.<br /><br />Let's clarify some stuff (these are my descriptions and definitions only):<br /><br />Geek Culture = the overarching media and social constructs surrounding enthusiasts and Geeks/geeks.<br /><br />Geek = someone who is a geek and active participant in Geek Culture. When used as "a Geek (thing)" or "Geeky", something that is <i>mainstream geek</i>, common to a larger majority of the community, or something that is geeky.<br /><br />geek/enthusiast = a person who enjoys media or activities and participates actively in enjoyment, whether it is sharing experiences with others or simply investing time and/or money in their hobby or interest. A person can be an enthusiast without being a geek, but rarely a geek without being an enthusiast, and geek is a <i>self-identified label</i>. When used as "a geek (thing)" or "geeky", something that is any type of hobby or preoccupation, any level of commonality in the community, but not necessarily part of the larger Geek community.<div>
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fan = a person who enjoys a thing or activity, with varying levels of interest.<br /><br />Not all geeks are Geeks but all Geeks are geeks, geeks can be fans but not all fans are geeks, all geeks are enthusiasts but not all enthusiasts are geeks, and so on.<br /><br />As an example, I'm a Geek <i>and</i> a geek <i>and</i> a fan. I consume mainstream geek media like Star Trek and Star Wars and Harry Potter, and actively participate in the enjoyment - I share it with friends, I talk about the meaning and theories addressed in the media, and I invest money in clothing, jewelry, posters, etc. about these things. I'm an RPG geek, not just playing but also discussing theory and investing money into the products, and a participant in the overall gaming community. Someone just the same as me might say that they're just a geek, or just an enthusiast, or just a fan, but they have <i>the option</i> of a narrower label.<div>
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I think one of the big problems right now is that one, we're applying the geek or Geek label to people or things without it necessarily fitting. See, someone can be a geek about football but not consider themselves a geek, instead using the label of <i>fan</i>. However, someone who is a fan of football might consider themselves a <i>sports geek</i>, because they know the gritty details of the statistics, details about the players, and other things that indicate a deeper level of involvement.<br /><br />Sometimes people are geeks or enthusiasts because of their profession - academics, experts - but don't use the geek moniker because it has a negative component for a lot of people. Geek was used as an insult and has a kind of yucky history, and some people don't want the label because of that. That's totally okay! They don't have to be geeks! We can think of them in that context to understand them, but that doesn't make them geeks - you can't be a geek without consent. This is part of why the Fake Geek meme is so outrageous. Geek is a self-applied label, so telling someone they aren't a geek or that they don't do enough of whatever you think they should do to be a geek is utter nonsense. Just as someone can behave in a manner of a geek and not call themselves a geek, someone can behave in a manner not like a geek and still call themselves a geek. </div>
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Another problem is that geek has become Geek - mainstream - in many arenas. Geekiness carries so much baggage that being a part of the mainstream or there even being mainstream geeks or Geeks is just <i>weird</i>, man. Geeks are used to being separate from the norm, a niche market, outcasts. Now we have TV shows that feature geeks prominently and often not flatteringly. Non-geeks adopt our image - geeky references on t-shirts, black rimmed glasses, even attaching themselves to our media and our gadgets. </div>
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We feel defensive. I feel it, too, even though some might consider me a Fake Geek, when people on the periphery claim, "I'm such a geek!" when in my mind, they're really a "Geek". They're enthusiasts and consumers but they are more than that a part of the larger Geek Culture. They might like <i>Avengers</i> (the film) and have never picked up a comic in their life, and that's cool! They can be a part of Geek Culture. They can consider themselves geeks, big or little G, because <b>it's perception that matters</b>. How you perceive yourself - a geek, an enthusiast, a fan, or a Geek - is what matters, not how I look at you, or some stranger looks at you. You judge if your amount of investment into something counts enough to make you a geek. </div>
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Geek Culture has some biiiig problems, though. One, the Fake Geek thing, which I've addressed above, is total bullshit and needs to die die die. Two, there's still so much rampant sexism and racism and classism. </div>
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Classism? Yeah, I said it. Being a Geek costs money a lot of the time, and because collector items often require a lot of investment (and sometimes geeky endeavors in general take a lot of time and money), it can give people the impression that if you don't have the funds to participate in all of geek/Geek, you aren't allowed to be a Geek. Maybe someone only saw <i>Avengers </i>and doesn't buy the comics because they only have a small allowance and $4 comic books multiple times a month really add up, but seeing one movie this summer at the shitty local theater was just affordable. They can still be a geek if they want to, because we shouldn't have a <i>buy in</i> to be a geek. Geek isn't a country club!</div>
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Racism and sexism? You can't throw an Xbox without hitting an article about the sexism and racism in Geek Culture. From video games to movies to comics to historical reenactments - these things are pervasive in normal society, and geek communities have no special exception. The thing is, we all should care enough about this community and about the media we consume to actually give a fuck about changing it. </div>
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What we consume as Geeks or geeks or fans or enthusiasts, whatever label you want to put on it, contributes to the image we present as people or as members of Geek Culture. And we need to change it. If people look at us and see these negative aspects first and foremost, it gives all of us a bad name, and that's part of why people deny identification. Geeks shouldn't be known for being assholes or ignorant. We should strive to make our fandoms and our interests look <i>better</i>, not be negligent or dismissive and make them look <i>worse</i>. </div>
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But, so many of us don't. After all, it's just a game! It's just a movie! It's just a comic! </div>
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It's just <i>a huge part of our lives</i>. </div>
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<br />Just some stuff to think on. <br /><br /><3,<br /><br />BCS<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>
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<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><br />
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-53164537676902443442013-07-24T07:29:00.001-07:002013-07-24T07:29:25.721-07:00My disappointment with Remember Me<small><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">So, I haven't finished Remember Me. It came out like two months ago, I know, what the hell am I doing?</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Here's what.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">I'm still interested in the story. I think it sounds fascinating. I still was interested in the art and the visual parts of the game. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">I fuckin' <i>hate</i> the combat. Like, if I did all other parts of the game, I'd be fine, but the combat is clunky and I failed so many times it took me four times as long to get through simple combat. I am slow on combat in general, and have trouble following combos (and the combos are so unclear in this game!).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">It's bad enough that I'm considering asking </span><span class="proflinkWrapper" style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="proflinkPrefix" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.218s; color: #427fed; transition: color 0.218s;">+</span><a class="proflink" href="https://plus.google.com/111630703575332413253" oid="111630703575332413253" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.218s; color: #427fed; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.218s;">John Sheldon</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"> to play through it for me while I watch, since it's not an incredibly long game and I want to see the rest of the story. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">I'm just so disappointed. I wanted this game to succeed. The marketing was too little and the execution isn't good enough. It makes me angry because this game had a lot of good going for it in the beginning and because they could have made a big impact if the game had just been better and if they'd marketed more effectively. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Sigh. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Feel free to comment below with your own stories of disappointing games (or comments about </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Remember Me</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"> specifically). </span></small><br />
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-40933495847883607972013-07-08T09:25:00.000-07:002013-07-08T09:25:06.219-07:00Monsters - Doppler<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doppler</span></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-1618138c-1532-095f-fded-1df86a6ff28e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the most frightening things for many people, next to public speaking, is to have their identity - their personhood - taken away and used for nefarious purposes. That’s what the Doppler is all about. They can duplicate any living being down to DNA with ease and accuracy.</span></div>
<small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dopplers in their natural state are long-limbed, light grey creatures that are about 7 foot tall. They are emaciated. Each hand has three long claws, and each foot has two short claws with a third larger, curved claw. Their legs are shaped like a dogs leg, to enable them to leap higher and run on all-fours if they prefer. They are intelligent, but not very smart unless they are mimicking someone who is more intelligent. Their eyes are small slits in their face, and they have no nose. Their ears are shaped similar to bat ears, and they are nearly as large as the head of the Doppler.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqCg6g1qffdUpeupcmUT-VxrvhEbQ0TkwKPZzCQ5aRFOHDHGcbWF-jExB0Y0Sx3d09JWGCiJmDobpuyNWdFFi42DjoM-QeaGd2dnR5V2PKsxUOMljV-LJ3B5K_SrytJjYRBYPsFDFoMj_/s1600/doppelganger.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqCg6g1qffdUpeupcmUT-VxrvhEbQ0TkwKPZzCQ5aRFOHDHGcbWF-jExB0Y0Sx3d09JWGCiJmDobpuyNWdFFi42DjoM-QeaGd2dnR5V2PKsxUOMljV-LJ3B5K_SrytJjYRBYPsFDFoMj_/s400/doppelganger.tif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Doppler has found its pray, by <a href="http://syreene.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Emily Vitori</a>. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<small><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dopplers find their prey by using echolocation - above human hearing, but able to be heard by many other creatures. They do not need to touch their victims - they only need to get near enough to them to identify them with their screeching, and then they can easily replicate their form. Like Hanging Men, Dopplers rest in peripheral vision, normally undetected by humans. They often take the form of furniture or small animals to track people. Their goals with their mimicking are varied, from hired identity theft to personal desires for a human body.</span></small><br />
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<small><small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Today's art is by <a href="http://syreene.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Emily Vitori</a>. Thanks to Emily for her contribution to the project!</i></span></small><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
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<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-59482992102458829382013-06-12T09:23:00.000-07:002013-06-12T09:23:46.393-07:00Monsters - Siren<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Siren</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the coast of every ocean, there can be found one shore - it may be rocky, or sandy, or a moist clay, but one may always find a Siren. To the naked eye, the Siren is their viewer's greatest desire - a chiseled, muscular man; a beautiful, voluptuous woman; a statuesque androgynous being. Whatever the beholder wishes, the Siren takes on their visage and draws their victim nearer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Siren has a distinctive call, a long, sad song they call out in a clear, haunting voice. They sing of loneliness and longing. The call has a strong effect on landlubbers and sailors alike, gripping at their heart and mind and pulling them ever closer into their arms.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvJZ_sm8De1TnY2ItmJT3JjEwKye8khrNyFLQdsRJ78bmoL6o3hSupZPCd2MjaO4F8_NYmzU_XRQWzZBP_Wnku0lB5oadkCCpX-jbyeiGZgls-dbtM9KV7EVy7iCJ6m9Qm80tm0M1RQaXn/s1600/siren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvJZ_sm8De1TnY2ItmJT3JjEwKye8khrNyFLQdsRJ78bmoL6o3hSupZPCd2MjaO4F8_NYmzU_XRQWzZBP_Wnku0lB5oadkCCpX-jbyeiGZgls-dbtM9KV7EVy7iCJ6m9Qm80tm0M1RQaXn/s400/siren.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Siren viewing its true reflection, by <a href="http://macguffin.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Jason Cox</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, like the myths say, it is a lie. Beneath their unearthly beauty lies a monstrous creature. Their body is like that of a human, but is dirty and covered with lichen and barnacles. Their face is where the horror lies - wide open and unblinking eyes that take up the sides of their face, and a vertical mouth lined with sharp teeth. When they capture their victim, pinning them, they devour them face first, drawing out the life energy and filling their bellies with raw flesh.</span></div>
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<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></small></div>
<div>
<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today's art is by <a href="http://macguffin.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Jason Cox</a>. Thanks for contributing to the Monsters collection!</span></i></small></small><br />
<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></small></small>
<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></small></small></div>
<small></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2013. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-53133326049226628282013-06-03T15:33:00.005-07:002013-06-03T15:33:45.329-07:00Monsters - The Kid<small><br /></small>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"></b></small><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kid</span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kid is five foot nothing, snotty nosed and petulant. The Kid is every bully in elementary school, and every kid who is bullied. He sneers and cringes all at once. He never meets your eyes, but can see into your soul. The son of the Flesh King never sleeps.</span></b></small><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYe-LbTRGPgNU1hSNK8OxZJV5tZlBnvFqrWRO7fFFHxuFBO68cZlxquWSqXiaXCXV88AwuRaRWNq7GKaocSNOE2LmVUqECPYcji8LagWii7RRo9ItKToogIjav0mBE3lroDwhnLIBlszdK/s1600/thekidprint.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYe-LbTRGPgNU1hSNK8OxZJV5tZlBnvFqrWRO7fFFHxuFBO68cZlxquWSqXiaXCXV88AwuRaRWNq7GKaocSNOE2LmVUqECPYcji8LagWii7RRo9ItKToogIjav0mBE3lroDwhnLIBlszdK/s400/thekidprint.png" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kid, by <a href="http://soozart.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Susan Knowles</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<small><b style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kid is always around. He just finds a couch in every town and never seems to leave. He’s only one person, but he’s everywhere. Everyone knows The Kid. He eats everything in your fridge. He rubs his nose on his sleeve and spreads the common cold like a plague. When you’re feeling down in the dumps, The Kid knows just the right thing to say to make you blame yourself. </span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid--b18d194-3c99-faf7-8022-049e31f14fd5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you talk to The Kid, he will flinch away like you slapped him. If he talks to you, he’ll find any weakness you have - any feature you have that you are sensitive about - and exploit it. He’s the Kid who got beat up at recess. He’s the Kid that locked someone in a locker. An enigma wrapped in a bologna sandwich.</span></b></small><br />
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<small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small><br />
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<small><i>Today's art is by <a href="http://soozart.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Susan Knowles</a>. Thanks, Susan, for your contribution to the project!</i></small>
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<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-89589945170113987292013-05-05T11:00:00.000-07:002013-05-05T11:00:02.845-07:00Monsters - Ravener<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-77b4f8f7-3c9d-6310-18c6-575f2f3ae832"></span></small><br />
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<small><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Ravener</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></small></div>
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<small><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Ravener (</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rah-ven-ur)</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the result of a corruption of the blood that alters the physical and mental substance of a human until they are barely recognizable. </span></small></div>
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<small><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Ravener is typically a person who has done something they regret, but that they don’t want to feel guilty for - they hunger for validation, or they are starved for other people’s approval. When they are affected, the person will begin to feel sick when they eat regular food and drink, and their stomach will gorge, and they will no longer digest the food but simply regurgitate it. They develop a taste for flesh, first raw red meats, but they hunger most for the flesh of humans and corpses.</span></small></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their skin starts to flake, stripping off to raw skin that eventually becomes rubbery, like lizard skin, with rough scales on the elbows. The Ravener’s teeth fall out, and their bones become brittle and thin. Along their throat, muscles develop that flex when the Ravener eats, pulling the food down whole. Their stomach distends and they regurgitate large masses of hair and bone mixed with bits of skin and bile after eating. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyvx6Cu5qanR5vJPUxpXmflzofPVTbgRAYpe9856Edu2RL9ZtO3-WXcHl7WdcAKTzE0IlrfhfmxpHph9ZqVWiey3hNflNe82aF5OWbTGHRS2JKAKKV-M8MN0j15LaBC7D8iPoBSkdS_6gm/s1600/ravener.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyvx6Cu5qanR5vJPUxpXmflzofPVTbgRAYpe9856Edu2RL9ZtO3-WXcHl7WdcAKTzE0IlrfhfmxpHph9ZqVWiey3hNflNe82aF5OWbTGHRS2JKAKKV-M8MN0j15LaBC7D8iPoBSkdS_6gm/s400/ravener.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Ravener after their transformation, by <a href="http://syreene.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Emily Vitori</a>. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually, the Ravener develops small spines on the palms of their hands that help them cling to their food and to other slick surfaces. These spines also cover their tongue, which grows three times in length. Their fingers and toes lengthen, although some may break off from the thinning bone. Their eyes will burst open, revealing many dark tendrils that reach out and act as additional sensory organs, sensing the heat of the living and near dead. Raveners, due to their </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">unsavory</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> appearance, often retreat to live in sewers, cemeteries, or near large bodies of water, becoming somewhat amphibious over time. </span></span></span></small><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</i></span><br /><small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Today's art is by <a href="http://syreene.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Emily Vitori</a>. Thanks to Emily for her contribution to the project!</i></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-73832325009408946632013-05-03T15:52:00.000-07:002013-05-03T15:53:13.387-07:00Personal Stuff, carry on.<div dir="ltr"><div style>I have spent a long time trying to find myself.</div><div style><br></div><div style>I still haven't succeeded. </div><div style><br></div><div style>I think I'm going to stop trying, and try to just go with it. </div> <div style><br></div><div style>I don't know why I have tried for so long. I think some of it may be the expectations of youth. I'm 25, after all, I'm supposed to be "searching" and living some sort of life that I guess isn't mine. </div> <div style><br></div><div style>I got a lot of shit for getting married early, because obviously, it wouldn't last, but honestly we've been together almost 10 years and married for 7. And we're happy. To say we're failing at being married is utter nonsense. I wasn't ignorant of my choices at 18, and just because I made a good choice doesn't mean everyone else will, even if they wait until they're older to get married.</div> <div style><br></div><div style>That was a part of me I knew. I knew, I want to be married to TGW. </div><div style><br></div><div style>I know that I like to geek out and have fun, but that's not really who I am or what I want to do with my life. While I'd like to involve geeky stuff in my career and life, I can't say it's the only thing, because I frankly don't know.</div> <div style><br></div><div style>I don't want to keep searching for an identity I may never find. I see way too many people older than me, some by decades, who never found themselves in that special way society promises us we will. I don't want to be desperate for an identity, so desperate that I latch on to whatever is offered. That's not me - I know that for sure.</div> <div style><br></div><div style>I am still successful in doing what I'm good with for the time being, but I don't know who I am, and <i>that's okay</i>.</div><div></div> </div> <div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>BrieCShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09759011454975638181noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-5805973407394713072013-05-02T19:24:00.003-07:002013-05-02T19:24:44.618-07:00Monsters - Gremlings<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-5ad3c681-682f-f724-26ba-6d5adac4d5a5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"></b></small><br />
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-5ad3c681-682f-f724-26ba-6d5adac4d5a5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></small></div>
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-5ad3c681-682f-f724-26ba-6d5adac4d5a5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gremlings</span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-5ad3c681-682f-f724-26ba-6d5adac4d5a5" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gremlings are small critters, about the size of a small cat. They are bipedal, with long clawed toes and fingers. Their skin is a ruddy green, lizard-like in texture.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOFWimFDovpSkrkGYBwigj37bfc1TUDW-732hTWfNhkbqkIyHK11_8FaEdMmbudZjEOgv_gVC_E7KGXAoU1QyYTVDPTDnt_bVdWpBU4739_9E-XSRuDzHGTL-2qWX1y927mfq4w-T_nPlv/s1600/gremling-final.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOFWimFDovpSkrkGYBwigj37bfc1TUDW-732hTWfNhkbqkIyHK11_8FaEdMmbudZjEOgv_gVC_E7KGXAoU1QyYTVDPTDnt_bVdWpBU4739_9E-XSRuDzHGTL-2qWX1y927mfq4w-T_nPlv/s640/gremling-final.png" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Gremling about to smash, by <a href="http://hishgraphics.com/" target="_blank">Khairul Hisham</a>.</td></tr>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gremlings are harmful helpers. They came into existence along with the innovation of computer and electric technologies, and their primary purpose is to damage and break anything that runs on electric power. They typically work in the dream world, reaching through the boundaries to press buttons, scratch screens, and gnaw on cords. </span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some people manage to become infected with Gremlings. Something they have done frustrates the creatures, or perhaps they just have bad luck, but the Gremlings latch on and invade their space. Tens of little Gremlings will bash, smash, and break the pieces inside computers or telephones, blocking out communication outlets. They will stick around until they get distracted, or until there’s nothing left to break.</span></b></small><br />
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<small><small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></small></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<small><small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></small><small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today's art is by <a href="http://hishgraphics.com/" target="_blank">Khairul Hisham</a>. Thanks for contributing to the Monsters collection!</span></i></small></small></div>
<br />
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-29381513539930503742013-05-02T13:39:00.001-07:002013-05-02T13:39:16.483-07:00Monsters - Shadow Man<small><br /></small>
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-148cefbb-3c9b-a719-470d-f4e045e37843" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shadow Man</span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-148cefbb-3c9b-a719-470d-f4e045e37843" style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-148cefbb-3c9b-a719-470d-f4e045e37843" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shadow Man is a special breed of Bogeyman. As the name suggests, he lurks in the shadows, an undefined shape creeping along behind each step, hiding in every corner. The Shadow Man does no physical harm and cannot be captured by normal means.</span></span></small><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETsGqp7PA3zaPROK_ETHhQ4ILPSrPUaLb7B8IxfUqqzKYY3vDsXj47w23_iNFLy2yZNwKzDwBe4aJ3QWZvXOFffbNeG61AJ2hmdmvs0N_agImFDlGPuRoGyVeyTwvnX7koTQng__sVp-E/s1600/shadowmen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETsGqp7PA3zaPROK_ETHhQ4ILPSrPUaLb7B8IxfUqqzKYY3vDsXj47w23_iNFLy2yZNwKzDwBe4aJ3QWZvXOFffbNeG61AJ2hmdmvs0N_agImFDlGPuRoGyVeyTwvnX7koTQng__sVp-E/s640/shadowmen.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He creeps. <i>By</i> <a href="http://finaira.deviantart.com/art/The-Scavengers-357093224" target="_blank">Laura Hamilton</a>.</td></tr>
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<small><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></small></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">His victims suffer no physical harm and no trauma, but are constantly plagued with self-doubt. They will become more uneasy the longer he walks behind them. Many victims of the Shadow Man will become anxious, ill at the thought of being seen, and lock themselves in their homes. By doing so, they cause themselves greater suffering, because he can surround them and overcome the light. </span><br />
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shadow Man can spread himself thin to haunt any number of people, but the more he tries to haunt, the weaker he becomes. It is always best to find him in a crowd. He fears light, and enough light will disrupt him. Even if he is disrupted, he always comes back to instill again the anxious doubt he inflicts.</span><br />
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</b></small><br />
<small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small><br />
<small><br /></small>
<small><small style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Today's art is by Laura Hamilton, <a href="http://finaira.deviantart.com/art/The-Scavengers-357093224" target="_blank">finaira on Deviant Art</a>. Thank you to Laura for her donation to the Monsters project!</i></small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></small><br />
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-77959110266084346322013-04-29T12:01:00.000-07:002013-04-29T12:01:05.703-07:00Monsters - The Magician<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: medium;"></b></small><br />
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></small></div>
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Magician</span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pick a card, any card, and the Magician will answer your wish. The Magician stands on the street corner, traveling city to city, offering a trick for whatever you’re willing to pay. His tricks come with a price. The Magician looks unassuming, just a lanky fellow with a pot belly standing on the corner with his table of tricks. </span></span></small><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wNs79qnuiUF9Y-HrZ46g99J6tOK86R1XHickUolijf2RLSi0vOwwf0Foud94oE8t1u4vaqSR-pNaLsjlalYTdaH8UBa0gYdz7beQT8nLcO-siuvEg6QZWCJ1NVSgtt2buzjPHbJqGqWX/s1600/magician.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wNs79qnuiUF9Y-HrZ46g99J6tOK86R1XHickUolijf2RLSi0vOwwf0Foud94oE8t1u4vaqSR-pNaLsjlalYTdaH8UBa0gYdz7beQT8nLcO-siuvEg6QZWCJ1NVSgtt2buzjPHbJqGqWX/s400/magician.png" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He doesn't look scary at all. <i>by</i> <a href="http://www.vanitygames.com/" target="_blank">Jaydot Sloane</a></td></tr>
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small><br />
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<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Magician is represented in the Tarot as a diviner - and divine he does, all of your future. He will flip a card or two and tell you what is to come. If you find that your future is unfavorable, he’ll make an offer. He’ll promise to delay your suffering - a few years, a few months, to give you time to prepare and fulfill all of your wishes. His promises, though, cost your soul. </span></span></small></div>
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<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-725788f7-3c86-0ac3-08cc-f76ab2d8dc03" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When your time is up, your suffering will come along tenfold, and if you even survive the Magician will keep hold of your future. The moment your life ends is the moment you belong to him - an agent of bad fortune, an enforcer of bad will. The consequence of delaying your fate is no delayed gratification but his. </span></span></small></div>
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<small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small><br />
<small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></small>
<small><i style="font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today's art is by <a href="http://www.vanitygames.com/" target="_blank">Jaydot Sloan</a>. Thanks to Jaydot for contributing to the Monsters collection!</span></i></small><br />
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-79918835970125657532013-04-24T06:36:00.001-07:002013-04-24T08:52:50.805-07:00Monsters - Two-Nosed Hounds<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></small>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium;"></b></small><br />
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two-Nosed Hounds</span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When someone is lost in time and space, there is a need for something more than just a standard search party. There is no greater expert in tracking than a Two-Nosed Hound. The hounds are intelligent beasts, but they are easily distracted, hard to control, and aggressive. They can be captured and domesticated to a degree, but once they have a master, they will trust no one else.</span></span></small><br />
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"></b></small><br />
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<small><span id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: small; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nocturnal by nature, Two-Nosed Hounds only track at night, and will fight against any urging to do anything in daylight. They are able to find the scent of their targets through dimensions, in the mundane and dream worlds, and even can track people hundreds of years out of time, but their communication of the locations and time are limited to shared telepathic images. Not every species is equipped to withstand the mental strain of telepathic communication, so an untrained master of a Two-Nosed Hound may risk a stroke in trying to understand their hound. </span></span></small><br />
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></small></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLGAsmxK5mDdrXMrQOfWPF_Hy8RSlYRscrDdm2VDjg8Ck2h7q0rxUKeNVUAEuJCtqV72CqiZRUptb4BnSDvtC-i65slP3BuYa1Gk6zD4PXHYvYt97gJrDEFKiPM5JMGUmMjg2OaWjOTK_/s1600/Twonosedhounds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLGAsmxK5mDdrXMrQOfWPF_Hy8RSlYRscrDdm2VDjg8Ck2h7q0rxUKeNVUAEuJCtqV72CqiZRUptb4BnSDvtC-i65slP3BuYa1Gk6zD4PXHYvYt97gJrDEFKiPM5JMGUmMjg2OaWjOTK_/s640/Twonosedhounds.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two-Nosed Hounds bounding through dimensional tears. Art by <a href="http://finaira.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Laura Hamilton</a>.</td></tr>
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<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></b></small></div>
<small><b id="docs-internal-guid-0f57f26b-3c3e-c4c8-0891-2596a2c863d2" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The hounds have two heads, each with a long snout and a very large nose. Their face is shaped similarly to the mundane Bloodhound. They have very long ears. The beasts are covered in a thick, matted fur. Their fur is resistant to fire, acid, and allows them to survive the most extreme cold, but they are vulnerable to parasites and they have a weak immune system, so they are always at high risk of illness. Two-Nosed Hounds have a howl that echoes beyond the mundane world, and their howl risks drawing attention from monsters in the dream world. </span></b></small><br />
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<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></small></div>
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<small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></small></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><small><i>Today's art is by Laura Hamilton, <a href="http://finaira.deviantart.com/art/The-Scavengers-357093224" target="_blank">finaira on Deviant Art</a>. Thank you to Laura for her donation to the Monsters project!</i></small> </span></small></div>
<br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-9219036828272711922013-04-17T06:43:00.001-07:002013-04-17T06:43:54.158-07:00Monsters - Grabber<small><br /></small>
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<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6767281093634665"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grabber</span></b></small></div>
<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6767281093634665" style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></small>
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<small><span id="internal-source-marker_0.6767281093634665" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The world of dreams may be ruled by the Flesh King, but his enforcers and beasts of nightmare are many - and they do not always obey his instruction. One of these beasts is the Grabber. Born of hunger and greed, Grabbers climb up from the grimy muck of perverse cruelty, and live on the sustenance of humanity’s evil. </span></span></small></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grabbers smell, at first, like an overpowering cologne, until they move nearer and it turns to the acrid smell of sweat and rot. Most people are struck with fear or pure revulsion upon seeing the creature scrambling towards them. If a target manages to resist this fear, the Grabbers will become uninterested, and crawl away to find a more frightened meal. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7EeUy7jd0JFvPWILfC3kKljIcTeKyAuW_oSbLLO9sXJJ1AekXwEWPwHaES2ZVCX_8pNjXJ-WN4evmuLw9uSq8gj8Q8r9YzqQ4LfeDpyEHGLj6YHuy_9aEyMhubnwIVItviJcEQmH5oScS/s1600/grabber1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7EeUy7jd0JFvPWILfC3kKljIcTeKyAuW_oSbLLO9sXJJ1AekXwEWPwHaES2ZVCX_8pNjXJ-WN4evmuLw9uSq8gj8Q8r9YzqQ4LfeDpyEHGLj6YHuy_9aEyMhubnwIVItviJcEQmH5oScS/s1600/grabber1.png" height="320" width="314" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Grabber about to latch on to it's victim, by <a href="http://www.vanitygames.com/" target="_blank">Jaydot Sloan</a>.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span id="goog_996469171"></span><span id="goog_996469172"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grabbers are shaped like a human, but instead of a body, they are a mass of outstretched arms. Each arm has a hand with a gaping mouth in the center of the palm, with small spiny teeth that jut outwards. Grabbers have no difficulty moving on any terrain, and in the world of dreams this is especially valuable. Killing a grabber is very difficult. Once they grab hold of their target, they will not release. They will suck their prey dry of all bodily fluids, the spiny teeth gnawing and shredding through any tissue.</span></div>
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<div style="font-size: medium;">
<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></small></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<small><br /></small></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><small><br /></small><small><i>Today's art is by <a href="http://www.vanitygames.com/" target="_blank">Jaydot Sloan</a>. Thank you to Jaydot for this donation to the Monsters project!</i></small> </span></small></div>
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<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-72258960939902379602013-04-11T11:08:00.002-07:002013-04-22T10:47:19.246-07:00Monsters - Dryads<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.28943523741327226"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dryads</span></span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLT2jADj4oEzdO0LG0U-fp3k3gIOM6PTkD5po_Y8Sf1rPVpTWS3Ke4cpoOtbRkbxMSQMubZses6uPWdZcHKZR-3SMJhbMFNP0mMw-FI0LrRNGWUjHzzR4DOK-6PQSm9rUL-qefFqc3fOpK/s1600/Dryad+Sketch+PreFinal_Leaf+copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLT2jADj4oEzdO0LG0U-fp3k3gIOM6PTkD5po_Y8Sf1rPVpTWS3Ke4cpoOtbRkbxMSQMubZses6uPWdZcHKZR-3SMJhbMFNP0mMw-FI0LrRNGWUjHzzR4DOK-6PQSm9rUL-qefFqc3fOpK/s640/Dryad+Sketch+PreFinal_Leaf+copy.png" height="640" width="425" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Dryad turning her victim, by <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/117922554666122792271/" target="_blank">Kyrinn S. Eis</a>.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dryads are creatures of myth, painted by the Greeks as passive beauties of the oak trees. It may be that once, that is how they were. The dryads, with their sisters Meliai of the ash, the Caryatids of apple, the Epimeliad of the walnut, and the hamadryads who sleep in the trees, all protect the earth. </span><br />
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<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.28943523741327226"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These creatures stand in the earth in the day, and wail when they are cut down and killed by the cruel machines of the modern world. They hold back throughout all of the seasons, but midsummer is when they are freed from their static forms. They step forth, creatures of wood with the slow sap pouring through their veins. </span></b></small></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dryads whisper through their leaves to draw their victims close, almost like Sirens singing, and they do no more than touch the humans who murdered their fellows. Upon the touch, the human is paralyzed, and roots burst forth from their feet, holding them to the ground. Their skin turns to a rough, thick bark, which breaks apart as wood branches tear through their flesh. The Dryads will watch in satisfaction as their victims bones break, and as the blood pouring from them turns to slow, sticky sap. This transformation cannot be stopped, and in the end, the victim is no more than another tree in the forest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">Today's art is by </span><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/117922554666122792271/" style="font-family: Arial;" target="_blank">Kyrinn S. Eis</a><span style="font-family: Arial;">, creator</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of </span></i></span></span><br />
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<span id="internal-source-marker_0.28943523741327226"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.28943523741327226"><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://thegrandtapestry.blogspot.com/#uds-search-results" target="_blank">URUTSK: World of Mystery</a></i></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></small><br />
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<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Would you like to contribute art for the Monsters collection? Contact me at briesheldon@gmail.com.</span></i></small></small></div>
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<small><small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you!</span></i></small></small></div>
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<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-17765080623628762002013-03-19T12:55:00.000-07:002013-03-19T12:56:10.948-07:00Little Rituals<div dir="ltr"><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">*How I am using </span><button tabindex="-1" class="" style="white-space:nowrap;background-color:rgb(238,238,238);border:1px solid rgb(221,221,221);border-top-left-radius:2px;border-top-right-radius:2px;border-bottom-right-radius:2px;border-bottom-left-radius:2px;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:1.4;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;margin:0px 1px;padding:0px 1px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(51,102,204)"><span class="" style="color:rgb(136,136,136)">#</span>BPAL</button><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> to improve my health:*</span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">I have bipolar disorder and a lot of anxiety issues. I also have mild tendencies of OCD when I am manic, and issues with maintaining attention to tasks. This shapes up to a lot of complication and extra stress.</span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">Lately I have been buying and swapping perfume oils from _Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab_ and some other smaller companies. BPAL is one of the only places I can reliably buy perfume, and the other smaller companies only have a few that I can try without headaches or allergic reactions. </span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">Why does this matter?</span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">First, I rarely put perfume on first thing in the morning because of John's sensitivities to perfume. So at work, I put on my perfume and take my daily morning medicines for my bipolar, and any pain medicine I need to take. It's a good way to remember, because I remember to put on perfume more easily than to take my medicine (no idea how that works!). </span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">Second, getting the packages in the mail are a huge highlight for me, especially when they are surprise gifts from the people in my BPAL circles. I don't get a lot of personal mail, and they always come with tea or a card or note, and it's just very sweet. It also gives me the opportunity to send gifts out! Sometimes scents don't work for me, but they work for others, so I bundle them up and mail them. This is really nice.</span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">Last, the organization is fun. It's fun to go through the bottles and imps and sort them by type or by preference, smell ones that I can't remember if I like, all that stuff. It gives me one small space that I can have total control over and organize however I want. That's actually really meaningful to me. It gives my brain some space.</span><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"> <br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">Do you have little rituals or habits that keep you healthy and sane?</span><br> </div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><br></span></div><div style><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px">-BCS</span></div> <div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><br> </span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.333333969116211px;line-height:20px"><br> </span></div><div><br></div><div></div> </div> <div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>BrieCShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09759011454975638181noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-10034290069174263982013-03-01T10:32:00.001-08:002013-04-11T11:14:40.894-07:00Monsters - Scavengers<small></small><br />
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<small><small><b><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Scavengers</span></span></b></small></small></h2>
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<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.38939359853975475" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Scavengers are the offal eaters of the earth - the carrion crows. They eat whatever bits of meat and rotted flesh they can find, no matter what beast it comes from, man or animal. When they see smaller animals eating the wastes of the dead, they will stay hidden, and raise a screeching sound that makes hair stand on end to frighten away the others. They typically move to stay downwind of any other creatures, because they are surrounded by a nauseating smell of death.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">If the Scavengers are unable to find food of their own, they will creep closer to areas inhabited by humans, and steal away small children. They are able to mimic human voices, and will stalk their prey to learn the voices of their parents. When the children wander near, following the calls of the Scavengers, the monsters will exhale a breath of vile gas that results in instant death and rapid decomposition. </span></b></small></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZiFbBFgGuN4eA-Ib4wq9S1X-af-i2mluk51zeB2il_nVv4ZSw4M-A6LvL0xRKlQTPssVoo0wZ_awkZMwUCW5ZE0xst-BVNGf9tCmjW70s06ROp6iEfaOqg4hRuWkjmXt7SrF-6cpoTVYQ/s1600/scavenger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZiFbBFgGuN4eA-Ib4wq9S1X-af-i2mluk51zeB2il_nVv4ZSw4M-A6LvL0xRKlQTPssVoo0wZ_awkZMwUCW5ZE0xst-BVNGf9tCmjW70s06ROp6iEfaOqg4hRuWkjmXt7SrF-6cpoTVYQ/s640/scavenger.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scavengers and the remains of a doe; by <a href="http://finaira.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Laura Hamilton (finaira)</a>.</td></tr>
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<small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span></b></small><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">These bird-like creatures are taller than the average human, and hulking in shape. Their bodies are made up of hundreds of wings, all folded close to their fatted form. They cannot fly - they only skitter on the ground on two feet, like rodents. Their bones are brittle, but protected by their thick skin and layers of fat. They have massive black beaks that they tuck close to their stomachs, and they can swallow creatures up to the size of a large dog. The only evidence they typically leave is feathers like a crow, and rolled up masses of bone, grit, and cartilage that they regurgitate.</span></b></small><br />
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<small><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small></div>
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<small><br /></small><small><i>Today's art is by Laura Hamilton, <a href="http://finaira.deviantart.com/art/The-Scavengers-357093224" target="_blank">finaira on Deviant Art</a>. Thank you to Laura for her donation to the Monsters project!</i></small> <small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><br /></small><small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED. </span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-29375981847983829152013-02-11T08:00:00.000-08:002013-02-11T13:32:27.838-08:00Monsters - Hanging Men<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<small><b><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hanging Men</span></span></b></small></h2>
<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.48610100289806724" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a tarot deck, one may often find the Hanged Man on a tree upside down, one leg crossed over the other. The readers of the cards will tell any number of interpretations of divinity, suspension of life, martyrdom, but none will speak of the true meaning of the card. The card represents the Hanging Men, those who are between sleep and waking, on the edge of life and death. </span></b></small><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97WP64YELRaC27SzeKQ2PN0dN2wyuIaWsGtzF3Uf4XH1ldxrIUI4CmCBzuzivtEwuuhnepzEsplxzO2k1Z3TMrxEB_5g4ykUxvlzIg9sxxIvRYBco16xMtwC96So-8pe1qrC3x2krEbb3/s1600/HangingMan001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97WP64YELRaC27SzeKQ2PN0dN2wyuIaWsGtzF3Uf4XH1ldxrIUI4CmCBzuzivtEwuuhnepzEsplxzO2k1Z3TMrxEB_5g4ykUxvlzIg9sxxIvRYBco16xMtwC96So-8pe1qrC3x2krEbb3/s640/HangingMan001.jpg" width="404" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>by John W. Sheldon</i></td></tr>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.48610100289806724" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Hanging Men are the ghosts of men who died destitute and shamed for their cruel actions in life, and they hang from unseen trees. All of the Hanging Men appear to have been at least partially flayed, their bodies less the pound of flesh they paid for their sins.</span></b><br />
<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.48610100289806724" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hanging Men can only be seen in peripheral vision, on the brink of death, or in dreaming sleep. They will target a person based on some imagined slight, still bitter and vindictive from their past life, and tease them, creeping into their minds and burning in thoughts of self-hatred, visions of pain and horrific torture, and leave the person with a damaged psyche as their revenge. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A victim may never escape the Hanging Men. If they are fortunate, they may find a blessing that hides them from the view of these spectres, and if they are less fortunate, they may meet someone in their dreams who will offer them a way out. In either case, by the time an option is found to leave, most people will take whatever option they can to get away from the endless scenes of terror that play in their minds.</span></b></small><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i><br />
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<small><br /></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE </span></small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-40961324703712200222013-01-20T20:12:00.001-08:002013-02-11T13:33:34.725-08:00Monsters - Underskin<div style="text-align: center;">
<small><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>THE UNDERSKIN</b></span></small></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<small><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6776963223237544" style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Underskin is a stealthy creature that is incredibly dangerous. When outside of a host, the Underskin is nearly invisible - it just looks like a very thin sheen of oil and water on any surface, not even more than a drop of water thick. The Underskin is not really one entity, but instead millions of microscopic bacteria. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Underskin takes its victims while they sleep by sliding over the surface of their body, like condensation or sweat, and seeping in through their skin. Once inside, they spread just beneath the skin over the muscles, thickening into a transparent membrane, but attaching, immovable, on the muscle bodies, and around the brain. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The victims will often wake up with blurry eyes and in a cold sweat, with a fine oily sheen on their face and body. After they have been taken by an Underskin, most people will see no difference, except their bodies will heal at a more rapid rate than normal. However, when the victims sleep, the Underskin will take over their bodies, and use them to complete tasks - eating whatever food they can to sate their hunger first, and then following on to often more devious tasks like stealing goods to hide in dank, dark sewers where the Underskin breed, or killing people who endanger their brood. </span></span></b></small><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></small>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihobjWYnqP4VBYU_C2PGT16KlQO-YPEUjWdJ0eli_uG_nB3wqO2tJwdipK0lVBoGecM7igIqbigLItlb2CIj3YtO71kVUCiZcmqThpuEpniBV98KkFY1F5pk5gZYaOD2FOvSjB0N3kJ3uc/s1600/CreepyThingy002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihobjWYnqP4VBYU_C2PGT16KlQO-YPEUjWdJ0eli_uG_nB3wqO2tJwdipK0lVBoGecM7igIqbigLItlb2CIj3YtO71kVUCiZcmqThpuEpniBV98KkFY1F5pk5gZYaOD2FOvSjB0N3kJ3uc/s320/CreepyThingy002.jpg" width="229" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An Underskin preparing to leave its host. <i>by John W. Sheldon</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<small><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Underskin has one priority: protect their collective. They cannot be killed while in a host, and only leave their host after they have accomplished their tasks. When they leave the body of their host, it’s a violent and painful experience for both the victim and the Underskin as the creatures stretch and rip away from the muscles and brain. Normally the victim will get sick, with a headache and symptoms like that of typical influenza, and it can take weeks to recover. Many people have been accused of crimes they have no memory of committing during the times when they were controlled by the Underskin. </span></span></b></small><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><small><br /></small>
<small>--</small></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: small;">Thanks to <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/111630703575332413253" target="_blank">+John Sheldon</a> for his art contribution!</span></small>
</span><small><br /></small>
<small><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note: If you decide to use any of the monsters in a campaign, please let me know! I'd like to see how they work out.</span></i></small>
<small><br /></small>
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010. USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
</span></small><br />
<small><span style="font-size: xx-small;">ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S. COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</span></small><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-69328534737607983152013-01-20T11:43:00.003-08:002013-02-10T19:38:35.220-08:00Gaming as Women - Finding My O with the X-Card<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I've decided to put up a trailing backlog of my posts. From now on, after one-two months of my posts being hosted on Gaming as Women, they will be posted here on BravoCharlieSierra. I still suggest directing any comments to the main site, and recommend visiting Gaming as Women to read the articles by other amazing authors like Filamena Young, Jessica Hammer, Elin Dastäl, Renee Knipe, and Monica Speca.</i></b></b></div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></i></b></b></b></h1>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"></b></b></div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">This post was originally posted on Gaming as Women on January 9, 2012</i></b></b></b></h1>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><h1 dir="ltr" style="display: inline !important;">
<span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://gamingaswomen.com/posts/2013/01/finding-my-o-with-the-x-card/"><span style="font-size: large;">Finding My O with the X-Card</span></a></span><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b></h1>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8179157208651304" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am a player who starts play with a lot of limits. A lot of “nuh uh!”’s. I have anxieties and fears and triggers. But, I </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">love</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> gaming. I love it, and it is one of the few places in my life I can find new experiences, work out my emotional and mental complications, and where I can push my boundaries.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is why I love safe space gaming. A lot of people think this means</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> you will never talk about anything bad ever</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and that’s so far from true! While I tend to lean towards a little bit happier gaming and I prefer a hopeful ending, I don’t need to avoid every bad topic ever to have fun. I just need to feel safe.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does that mean, then? To feel safe?</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It means </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have an exit strategy</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It means </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can say no</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It means </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">no one will laugh at me, criticize me, or quiz me</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> if I say no or have to leave. It means that if I have to get up and walk away, I won’t hear “what the hell was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about?” from anyone at the table. It means that the worst thing someone will say in response to me needing to press pause is “Are you okay?” and that they’ll wait a minute before </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">asking</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “Are we okay to continue?”</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until about a year ago, I didn’t know I had triggers at the table. The more I played, and the more I learned about gaming, the more I knew that there were things that could happen in game that might upset me or scare me. During game</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> design</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I found out that wow – consent in social interactions? </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That matters to me. I didn’t know that before!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a lot of ways to play without risking triggers. One option is just being open about your hard limits – which risks people thinking you’re being a “baby”, being “too sensitive”, or somehow crushing creativity/stunting the story. Another is to not play games where there is a risk – a big shock to me was that some triggers are socially acceptable and sometimes key parts of the game’s setting! You are always at risk of some triggers.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s hard to confront fears and work towards pushing your boundaries when you keep a pristine surrounding and play nothing adventurous. It goes against my nature. I kept looking – how can I feel safe but still try new things that might scare me?</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then I found</span><a href="http://thisjustinfromgencon.com/2012/08/20/this-just-in-from-clyde-an-interview-with-john-stavropoulos-of-nerdnyc/"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the X-card</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It’s just a card with an X on it that you can use to indicate when you’re uncomfortable with content in a game, and it guides the players and GM to skip over or avoid that content. I thought it was awesome! If I feel uncomfortable, I just tap the card! No twenty minutes of explanation, no shoving my feelings under the rug. Mind you, plenty of people hate the idea of playing with one because of the aforementioned crushing creativity and stunting story complaints. But! There is something about the X-card I want to unpack. First, I want to share the other side.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I went to OH, Games in December, Kira Scott ran Monsterhearts, and she put out an X-card – with an O on the back. The O is great, because Kira explained that when you want more of the content, you tap the O instead of the X. The O actually got used in that game – the X didn’t. In that game, there were at least 3 instances where I thought about using the X, but I didn’t use it. Why? I felt safe enough to not have to.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having a tool like the X-card – particularly one with the opposing O side – at the table creates a specific kind of mood at the table. It says “We’re here together. If you need to stop, we’ll stop. But if you want to keep going? Let’s do this.” It encourages a style of gaming that I had not really pursued before – a knees-deep, heart-pounding headlong run into emotional risk, but the best kind.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know that I risk getting hurt if I play like that. If it’s a bad hurt, and I want to stop, I put up the X and I know that the other players will support me in that. They don’t want me to be hurt, I don’t want to hurt them, it’s an understanding that we’re together in this. I haven’t used the X yet, but I am betting there will be a day when I do, because as much as I love confronting my fears, sometimes it’s a matter of time and place.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But, if it’s a good hurt, one that makes me feel like I’m unlocking something and that I want to feel more of, I tap the O and hold on tight.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It might make people think – well, why not just have the O-card? That establishes that people are on the same page, right? Not really. It’s easier to say more, more, yes, please! It’s not as easy to be in a group that’s saying yes! when you can feel yourself closing in and thinking, oh, please, no! That X-card is like a little unwritten rule. It says “Everyone has boundaries. Anyone could need this. It’s here for everyone.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It means I’m not alone.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you have a tool like this? Do you have a pre-game prep that establishes trust? How do you handle introducing new players to complicated or uncomfortable topics?</span></b><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
USED WITH PERMISSION. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION
STRICTLY PROHIBITED.
ALL CONTENT WITHIN THIS BLOG AND ANY OF THE ALTERNATE
SITES LINKED ARE SUBJECT TO FAIR USE UNDER U.S.
COPYRIGHT LAWS. THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS WITHIN
THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY, UNLESS OTHERWISE
STATED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO REPRESENT ANY
CORPORATION OR OTHER ENTITY.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09371081290350211755noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8962052530692148862.post-55990302276442596662013-01-20T11:40:00.000-08:002013-02-10T19:38:35.219-08:00Gaming as Women - Paizo Publishing & Pathfinder - Interview with Judy Bauer<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I've decided to put up a trailing backlog of my posts. From now on, after one-two months of my posts being hosted on Gaming as Women, they will be posted here on BravoCharlieSierra. I still suggest directing any comments to the main site, and recommend visiting Gaming as Women to read the articles by other amazing authors like Filamena Young, Jessica Hammer, Elin Dastäl, Renee Knipe, and Monica Speca.</i></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br />This post was originally posted on Gaming as Women on December 7, 2012.</i></b></h1>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><h1 dir="ltr" style="display: inline !important;">
<span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/12/paizo-publishing-and-pathfinder-interview-with-editor-judy-bauer/">Paizo Publishing and Pathfinder – Interview with editor Judy Bauer</a></span></span></h1>
</b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b></b></h1>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8902388587594032" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have been incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to do an e-mail interview with Judy Bauer, an editor at Paizo Publishing. Judy primarily does editing for Pathfinder, and she has been kind enough to provide us with some extensive and awesome responses to our questions about her history, being a woman in the industry, and her work at Paizo. Thank you so much to Judy for her time!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could you tell us a little more about your work at Paizo, and what books and systems you’ve had the opportunity to work on?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m an editor at Paizo, which for us means both copyediting and checking more developmental issues like clarity of rules, in-world continuity, plausibility of encounters, and gender balance/stereotypes. I started in 2010, and work on about every product line with words save Pathfinder Tales, so that’s every hardcover from the GameMastery Guide onward, every Adventure Path from Kingmaker onward, half the Pathfinder Scenarios from Season 1 onward, not to mention Pathfinder Campaign Setting books, Player Companions, Pathfinder Cards… It’s getting to be a long list!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is your favorite project you’ve worked on at Paizo? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Probably </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, partly because I learned so much about our campaign setting in the process (I love that in the same setting you can fight dragons, dinosaurs, and undead aliens), and partly because it was a chance to reexamine the setting and tweak some aspects that weren’t working or that didn’t make sense in retrospect.</span></b><br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did you play RPGs growing up? If so, what kind of experiences did you have as a female gamer?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, totally. My dad had a lifetime subscription to Dragon, the red box, and a random selection of AD&D hardcovers that I browsed as a kid. He didn’t game himself, but loved that that I was interested in these books too. I first got a chance to play D&D when I was about 13 or so, was immediately hooked. I gamed whenever I could through grad school and now again that I’m working at Paizo, using whatever rule set the GM wanted to run.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve had a couple bad experiences with pencil and paper RPGs (the worst being with another player who thought it would be a fun plot twist to mind control and rape my character, without clearing that with me). But I haven’t had anyone be condescending about my rules knowledge since junior high, and haven’t had problems with players being creepy since high school. I’ve mostly gamed with friends, though, and a good half of those groups included other women, which I’m sure makes a difference.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My one venture into MMOs, in contrast, really opened my eyes about how abusive and misogynistic gaming culture can be. There’s nothing like logging in to a screen full of graphic descriptions of your character (or you) being raped, complaining about it on some forum, then being flamed for having the audacity to be disgusted, you know? And, my bad luck, I’d picked an MMO that was totally </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unmoderated. I assembled some sympathetic players, and we started documenting incidences of in-game rape while campaigning the game’s creator to deal with the problem (he finally implemented an ignore option). I’m grateful for these allies, and glad I stuck it out and took action instead of walking away after the first time I was targeted, but wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It was really frustrating and demoralizing at the time, and definitely made me less excited about trying other MMOs.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you have any favorite RPGs? If so, why do you like them? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m pretty agnostic about rule systems—I’ll play about anything, including a friend’s homebrew rules with 42 (!) attributes, as long as the GM is good—and I’ve mostly played in homebrew settings. That said, I do have a soft spot for a few RPGs:</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AD&D</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: This is the game I grew up with, and the system used in my longest-running campaign—my first RPG crush, I guess.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Call of Cthulhu</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I love the setting, the gonzo concept, and the fact that because of the sanity mechanics, you’re not trying to win—you’re trying to lose as slowly as possible.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exalted</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The rules are so simple, the powers are intriguing, and you’re rewarded for doing crazy fantasy-superhero stunts!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pathfinder</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Every though I live and breathe this game every day, I’m still super excited about it (gripplis as PCs! Exploring the Crown of the World! Exploring other planets!). And I GMed for the first time using the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a woman in the gaming industry, how has your experience been in regards to finding work and getting recognition? Were there any particular challenges you experienced? </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I entered the game industry somewhat by chance, having previously worked in textbook development, so my experience isn’t that wide. But I feel really fortunate to work at a company that values my perspective as a woman, and to have managers who trust me and back me up if I have concerns about some aspect of a product, and who push me to put myself forward at seminars and conventions. Public recognition is actually something that I’m still getting used to, since textbook writers and editors try to be pretty invisible.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you think that women in the industry need to support each other more? What do you think is being done in the industry to make female contributors more welcome?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, I can’t speak for the industry as a whole, but I know in Paizo’s design contest, </span><a href="http://paizo.com/rpgsuperstar" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RPG Superstar</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, we’re always cheering for women who make it to the top—the top people are our future freelancers, and sometimes our future coworkers. Additionally, several of our developers put quite a bit of effort into mentoring new freelancers, helping them strengthen their skills so they’ll be prepared to take on more complicated assignments, and we try to promote our freelancers whenever we can—like the awesome up-and-coming writers Savannah Broadway, Amanda Hamon, Tracy Hurley, Melissa Litwin, Amber Scott, and Christina Stiles!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally—this isn’t anything new, but I think it bears saying—treating other women as allies instead of competition can really improve the work (and con) environment and make it friendlier toward women. RPG publishing can still be a boys’ club, though it’s getting better; I find it very reassuring knowing others will back me up if I need to call shenanigans on something, and am glad to support them as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paizo appears to have a lot of diversity in their management and contributors. Do you think it helps result in a better, more representative product? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It certainly helps! We want to see characters and settings that reflect ourselves, you know? And having been outsiders in various ways, we want to bring more people into our world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, being diverse in one dimension doesn’t mean you’re automatically inclusive across the board, even if you have the best of intentions. You really have to be alert to both opportunities for inclusion and warning signs that you’re excluding people or could cause offense, which can be hard when you’re also facing tight deadlines.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feedback from our audience has been important for helping us improve, too. When we hear from fans that they appreciate interesting queer characters in adventures, a location doesn’t have as many female characters as they’d come to expect, or an encounter is potentially offensive or extremely upsetting, it helps us become more observant and strengthens our commitment to being more inclusive in the future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you are working on Paizo products, do you take gender representation and how women are portrayed into consideration? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Definitely. I try to keep that in mind all the time, to maintain gender balance in products and make sure female characters fill as wide of a variety of roles as the male characters—that they’re not always just victims, or villains, or prostitutes, or dead in the backstory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t a policy I created; Paizo has always been committed to having balanced representation of women in its products. Half of our iconic characters for the character glasses are women, and in rules text and examples the style is to alternate between male and female pronouns to mix things up.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I started, though, I noticed that while there were almost always female characters in adventures and in the campaign setting products, sometimes there weren’t very many, or they were all in the background, or all monsters. I was still fairly new and building trust with the developers, so I began counting male and female characters in products I was editing to back up my intuitions, and going to the developers with the numbers. A lot of them were surprised to learn the actual proportions of male to female characters in turnovers—perhaps because they’re are all men and used to seeing fewer female characters in RPG products, “some” female characters instinctively felt like “a lot” to them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a little resistance to revising for gender balance, for the very fair reason that if you have to change characters’ gender or backstory during editing, at the end of the process, there’s a risk of introducing errors to a product. And sometimes your choices are limited because of the art ordered for characters. But my boss backed me up, and people gradually got into the habit of balancing characters during development, before I’d even see it. They also started giving feedback about gender balance to writers, which has helped as well—it’s so much easier if it’s there from the beginning. We’re still fine-tuning the process, but I think we’ve made real improvements.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do you want to be known for in your career? When people think of “Judy Bauer”, what would you like their first thought to be?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Adding women to adventures since 2010.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you have any suggestions for women looking to work in the game industry? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I suspect the barriers differ a lot depending on what part of the industry you’re interested in—experience in other sectors will get you further as an editor or graphic designer than as a game designer, developer, or writer. For the latter three, writing groups and design competitions can be very helpful ways to get feedback on your work and strengthen your skills, and community publications are a great way to build up a portfolio (for would-be Pathfinder writers and developers, we always recommend Wayfinder and </span><a href="http://paizo.com/rpgsuperstar" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RPG Superstar</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in particular).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, Kickstarter now provides an alternative route to entering the field and building a portfolio. While we hear most about new designers breaking into the industry, it’s a great opportunity for editors and graphic designers, too—you’re needed to make the game designers’ ideas shine!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a great experience to communicate with Judy and learn about her career. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her work with Pathfinder! Thanks, Judy!</span></b><div class="blogger-post-footer">THOUGHTY LOGO © JOHN W. SHELDON 2010.
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