Atomic Playboy

I finally managed to scrape together some motivation and do some work on a D&D campaign again. I’ve been thinking about running a few one-shot adventures at various levels as an introduction to both Dungeons & Dragons and the Scarred Lands, the world my campaign will take place in.

I’m currently building a bunch of level 7 characters for an adventure focused on paladins and clerics. Hence I’ll have one cleric, one or two paladins and one rogue, and possibly some arcane magic in the form of a wizard or sorcerer. Haven’t decided on the final mixture yet.

If you can speak D&D, here is the stat block for one of the paladins, as well as some teasers.

Hector Viando, Mithril Knight of Corean: Paladin 6/Mithril Knight 1; CR 7; SZ medium humanoid; HD 10+6d10+14; hp 84; Init +0; Spd 30 ft. (20 ft. with armor); AC 21 (+8 half-plate +1, +3 large steel shield +1); Attack +11/+6 melee (longsword +1 1d8+1), or +7/+2 ranged; SV Fort +8, Ref +3, Will +3; AL LG; Str 16 (+3), Dex 10, Con 12 (+1), Int 12 (+1), Wis 14 (+2), Cha 14 (+2).
Skills: Diplomacy +6, Knowledge (religion) +6, Craft (weaponsmithing) +8, Ride +10, Heal +6.
Feats: Feats: Weapon focus (longsword), Power Attack, Improved Shield Bash, Shield Charge
Possessions: Half-plate +1, large steel shield +1, longsword +2, horseshoes of speed, cloak of resistance +1

The elite Order of Mithril Knights is a step above paladinhood when it comes to Corean’s holy warriors. Selected from among the most skilled and experienced paladins, the knights form the military leadership of Corean’s temple, paralleling the clerical leadership and supplementing it when necessary. Both factions administer to the needs of the faithful and defend the faith as necessary, but the knights are considered the first line of defense against titanspawn and other threats.

Having recently been accepted among the ranks of the Mithril Knights, Hector is eager to serve his god and protect those in need from titanspawn incursions as well as the evils from within the divine races. Since his inception he has only been on patrol duty and the occasional guard duty, but now he has been chosen for an expedition to the village of Twilight Hollow, where the serving paladin of Corean has disappeared…

RSS: You are what you carry around. My list isn’t exactly long. On the left side, my Jukebox Zen, which I rarely leave home without nowadays. It tags along for work and school, but I leave it at home when I’m going out with friends. They tend to think it’s antisocial if I listen to music instead of talking to them anyway…

In the right pocket of my coat: a Nokia 3210. It has everything I want in a phone: you can talk in it, and send SMS. Everything else is bloat.

I would like to end the list with a smallish digital camera, but that will have to wait.

Update: Oh. And a 20-sided die. You never know when you stumble into a game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Yes, really. I have a white d20 in my pocket.

Flaming marshmallow Balrog sculptures! Peter Jackson should have thought of this for the first movie, he could have saved a hefty sum on 3D animation.

Ugh. Worked today. Then I came home and died, and now I live again. Ye gods, I’m tired.

By this time tomorrow, I probably own a G3. This’ll be fun.

Etymology lesson of the day: manikin (from the Dutch “mannikijn”) is a fully acceptable English word, older than the French-imported mannequin. The original meaning was “little man,” i.e. a dwarf.

My guess about the somewhat similar word harlequin came out wrong, though. It’s from the Italian arlecchino and the older form hierlekin, essentially meaning “hell kin,” but may also have originated from the old English Herla cyning and then middle English Herleking, the mythical King Herla associated with Woden/Wodan.

Yup, I would very much enjoy studying some etymology.

Tune of the moment: Feindflug / Größenwahn. Makes me want to go to Tech Noir and dance a few hours away.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I have a date with my bathtub.

RSS: NSLog → Konfabulator tutorial. “I think it’s funny to scroll down 50 pages of a tutorial and then see the words ‘That’s all there is to it.’” Same site: How to pack a hippo.

Slashdot: Yet another lame acronym law. Comment: “Obviously, we need legislation to keep our representatives from wasting too much time thinking up clever acronyms. I would like to propose a bill entitled Legislation Insulated from Acronyms by Representatives.”

Seriously, what’s up with all these “cool-sounding” acronyms they have to come up with for their laws? The PATRIOT act, the BALANCE act… Do they have PR firms that design the names of the laws, or something?

Breki raised some concerns that made me check my access logs. Yup, he, using Feedreader, polls my feeds every 42 to 45 minutes. Despite having disabled polls in Feedreader.

Major bug. I’ll check the Feedreader site and see if it’s known. I recommended Syndirella to him instead.

Let’s hope Feedreader gets some active development now that it’s GPL.

Time for the weekly USA bashing.

RSS: Wear a peace T-shirt, go to jail → Lawyer Arrested for Wearing a ‘Peace’ T-Shirt. Now this is just sick. The guy bought a t-shirt in a mall, and then got jumped by the mall security who wanted him to either take the t-shirt off or leave the mall. He refused, and got hauled away by the boys in blue. He got charged for trespassing, and may face up to a year in prison.

Long live the land of the free!

That wording, “land of the free,” has bothered me for a long time. If your country really is free, do you really need to be reminded that you live in the land of the free all the time? Is anyone afraid you might forget or have doubts about it? Fear not, citizen! Your friendly government is there to remind you, should you ever forget how free you are.

RSS: Censor like it’s 1760 → Library restrictions borrow from colonial-era abuses. Library censoring again. Censoring programs that still don’t work. Eddy, an aquaintance of mine, can tell you about it in thorough detail. Also, Austraila has come to the conclusion that web filters don’t work.

And now I feel a minor disclaimer is needed: I’m not gunning for every American alive, it’s just the American government I think needs a brain transplant. I’m having very interesting discussions with a whole bunch of Americans and other people from around the globe on various discussion forums. At least the Americans I’ve encountered there are well-informed and can at least understand the European point of view, if not always agreeing with it.

Update: Metafilter has caught on (Wooh! I scooped them!): “For some reason I think loads of people will show up at this mall wearing peace T-shirts over the next few days.”

Yes, it’s true that the mall is private property according to American law and the owners get to decide who can stay there — not leaving when told to equals trespassing. But threatening to throw a guy out and charging him with trespassing after buying a t-shirt in a store in their own mall is hypocrisy taken to the next level.

Anyway, read the comments in the MeFi post. Sheds some more light on the story.

Let’s try a link soup entry, Mark style.

• RSS: Tremble before the Spearer and the Smasher → The Lurker’s Guide to Stomatopods → What are stomatopods? → Smasher → Berserker → Shiva in Steel. I read a collection of Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker stories some years ago. Good stuff. There’s so much more to write about gargantuan mechanical space vessels designed only to annihilate all forms of life than epic space fights.
• RSS: Halt the Hun! → Germany thinking about copyright levy on PCs. Yet another attempt to save a dying antediluvian business model. A century ago there was an entire industry dedicated to sawing blocks of ice from frozen lakes and keeping them cool for the summer, so people could use them in their refrigerators. Then electrical refrigerators appeared. Did the ice guys get compensated for being put out of business? Didn’t think so. Why should the music industry be compensated for clinging to failing traditions?
• Played the Metroid Prime demo at Åhléns today. Waaah! I want a Game Cube! the movie from Zelda: The Windwaker looked purty. Cell shading looks good on Link.
• I’ll get a CSN card soon. Cheaper iBook! Yay!

My school is apparently selling some older surplus hardware. Mentioned was a bunch of G3s for 1000 SEK each. I got interested at once. Magnus and Martin are also interested, so I’ll see if I can lay my hands on three of them… I haven’t the slightest clue about what hardware it is, though.

It would be very nice to have a Mac to play with. I’ve used Mac for about five years, but I’ve never really had a close look at the hardware or operating system — the teachers in school tend to get upset at that. Yes, a Mac of my own to play with at my leisure will be fun. Let’s hope it has juice enough for OS X.

While on the topic of hardware, I bought a new CPU fan today. It’s so damn quiet that I occasionally open my case just to check that it’s actually working.

The land of the free
Under the thumb
Divided and conquered
TV keeps us numb
Coast to coast
A la-la land
From cradle to grave
With our heads in the sand
Nice and easy
A convenience oasis
Screwed with a chainsaw
All smiling faces
Born superheroes
Mega fantastic
Serving the one and only god: plastic
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