Kickstarter Update

Now we are only $76 away from reaching $10,000 in our Kickstarter! Consider a pledge of $60 and get the following: A digital and print version of the Codex Celtarum, your name in the book, a Codex Celtarum tee shirt, and an EXCLUSIVE adventure module penned by the author, Brian Young! See this level and more HERE.

Kickstarter Update: We are close to 10K!

Greetings all! Wanted to give you an update on the Kickstarter project.  We are only $545 from the $10,000 stretch goal.  If we hit 10K, we will unlock the MAPS! Beautiful full color 18x24 map of the world of the Celts.  AND if we hit 11K before it ends in 59 hours, we unlock a full color map of the Celtic Mythos for your Codex!  These are for any pledge of $60 or more; so consider a pledge today or upgrade your pledge and these maps will be yours if we hit our goals!  Thanks so much for all your support thus far, we really appreciate it! Kickstarter Codex Celtarum

Daily Cosplay

Still looking for some decent Barbarella . . . In the meantime, Green Arrows favorite, Black Canary.

Dark Skies

Not sure what is going on in this trailer, don't generally go for horror flicks, but this one looks pretty good I must say. A little classic horror it looks like.

Golden Wreath

In the midst of digging a new subway system the Greeks unearthed a Macedonian burial mound. The find revealed a box like grave in which the body of a woman was discovered with the wreath on her brow. The grave is about 2500 years old.

So her peaceful rest is at an end! The Story.

A Little Frazetta

Armor Up

Pegaso Models

Beecher Island

In 1868 Captain Forsyth led a small troop of federal cavalry into the country between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers in what is now Colorado along the Republican River. They ran into a war party of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, amongst whom road the famous war chief, Roman Nose.

Roman Nose is everything you've heard about the warriors of the plains. Highly decorated warrior with a trailing war bonnet, marking his many battle honors. He was known for counting coup in the most dangerous situations, at one point riding into the midst of a holed up wagon train to strike the head of a dead man and shout "I have counted first coup upon this longest faced white man that ever lived." All this in a hail of gunfire. His medicine was strong, and so long as he ate his food with no metal implements he could not be killed.

Forsyth camped on the Republican River, but woke up to discover that the Indians had come down upon them. They quickly surrounded the troop and pinned them down with heavy fire. The cavalry fortified their position with logs and shallow trenches. In the resulting battle many of the troopers were killed or wounded. But Roman Nose held back for that morning he had eaten (or so the legend goes) with a spoon, so he remained aloof of the fighting. That is until one of his warriors chided him and he painted up and went to battle.

He road down to the river and charged the island. His warriors followed suite, encouraged by his bravery. They rode into the fire!

Roman Nose was hit however and fell in some tall weeds not far from the island where he slowly bled out and died.

Give the Kid a Drink

A hard scene from one of the very best westerns with Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, The Unforgiven.

Rothenberg Germany

This is a very cool town in Germany, Rothenberg ob der Tauber, or Red Fortress over the Tauber (river). It still possesses its medieval walls with towers punctuated throughout. Very cool.

One of its best know streets is here:

Daily Cosplay

Because the request was just too cool to pass up: Barbarella!

The Voice, A Rune

The Voice

This rune is etched upon the throat and when done so correctly intones the magic of the Voice. The wielder's tone becomes deep and measured. It adapts a melodic, almost hypnotic, tone for any who can hear it, altering the speaker's normal speech patterns in order to appeal to others, no matter their cultural, linguistic background, changing even to account for social nuances such as religion and emotive responses. The wielder of the rune gains a +2 on all charisma checks and those that the Voice are directed towards become calm and very reluctant to attack the wielder. They will only do so if they are attacked by the wielder or any of those who serve him. Furthermore, they become susceptible to mind-altering spells, suffering a minus -2 on all charisma, wisdom or intelligence saving throws or attribute checks. 

Armor Up

Sulnar, Andrea Miniatures

Opportunity

Read a great article here on the other Mar rover, Opportunity. He's been up there for awhile now, roaming about, taking data. Its 3 month mission to seek out new worlds and go where no man has gone before has kept on going for almost 10 years. It "It has an arthritic joint in its robotic arm and it drives mostly backward due to a balky front wheel" but it keeps on going.

Presently he's sitting atop the rim of Endeavor Crater, enjoying the view, this view . . . .

I Told Davis To Back Off

I'm pretty sure that's just Davis . . . .

I'm like Fox Mulder wit Big Foot. I want to believe. The most compelling evidence are stories passed down by the various Indian tribes of the American North West.

These Need to be Larger

Bats are just cool. There needs to be some kind of creature that rides giant bats. Riding these creatures into battle hurling javelins upon their prey.

Kickstarter!! We Unlocked $8,000!!

We also had a great night with Kickstarter. WE UNLOCKED OUR Next Stretch goal! This unlocks all the great bonuses at the $8,000 level. Thanks so much! BUT we are not stopping there. With three more days, we are going to add more stretch goals and some great REWARDS in the coming hours so stay tuned to see what happens next! Check out our Kickstarter website and consider a pledge or upgrading your purchase! Thanks so much.  Trollzah! Trollzah! Trollzah!

We made it! Over 1,000 Likes on Facebook!

Good morning! We had a great night last night, getting over 1,000 "likes" here.  That means that the top 3, Todd, Jordan, and Corey will all be receiving a book, AND we are giving away an adventure to EVERYONE signed up on our mailing list.  So if you want to get the adventure, make sure to sign up for the mailing list  today because this will be going out later tonight! Thanks again and a huge Trollzah to all who helped us get there.  We can't tell you how much we appreciate it!

Daily Cosplay

That's Spittin' Distance

Now we're talking. On February 15 of this year an asteroid, DA14, will fly within about 15000 miles of Earth. The asteroid is roughly 150 feet across (45 meters). That's a pretty close shave, the space station lies about 240 miles from earth and many satellites hover around 22000 miles.

Get your helmets ready, it might be raining space-junk in a few weeks.

Armor Up

Pegaso Models

Word of the Day -- Henchman

So it turns out that, depending on which side of the law (or a situation), a henchman can be either an ally or a nemesis.  I've always thought of it as the latter.  Henchman: a trusted follower : a right-hand man, or a political follower whose support is chiefly for personal advantage; or a member of a gang

The earliest known examples of today's word in written English show it being used as a term for a squire or a page, but the word may have seen earlier use with the meaning "groom." It first appeared in Middle English at the beginning of the 15th century and is a combination of Old English "hengest" ("a male horse") and "man." In the late 1700s, "henchman" began to be used for the personal attendant of a Scottish Highland chief. This sense, made familiar to many English readers by Sir Walter Scott, led to the word's use in the broader sense of "right-hand man," which in turn evolved into the other meanings.

The Coolest Thing You Will See Today

Firefly

We've all watched this series, probably several times. I'm watching it again as well, and I finally have a complaint. I'm watching the episode where the Captain is taken prisoner with Wash and tortured. In the following rescue scene there is a long, running battle.

Jane, the mercenary, breaks out Vera, his BFG (Big FU*#ing Gun for you non-Doom fans) and with Zoe leads the charge. Not once did he use Vera, rather he used his pistol. He killed a whole lot of people, but he failed to open up with his BFG. I was only a  little disappointed.

We're Already Dead

I'm not really sure what this guy is talking about. A person's body, if you will, is more like a spine that spans the many dimensions, creating a tree of probability and the soul is a "multi-layered system of means . . . "

I'm not sure, but this is pretty cool.

Facebook Contest Extended 24 hours!!

FACEBOOK CONTEST UPDATE: We are currently at 893 "likes". It looks like we may fall short tonight. But because you all have been so tremendous in helping us try and get to 1,000 likes and because it was such a large task, we are going to extend the contest for one more night. So the battle rages on until Midnight on Tuesday. Just to let you know, it's almost a dead heat between Jordan and Corey, with Todd from Gateway and Clovis Kell coming up fast and furious. At this point, it could be anyone of them to win that brand new book. Or maybe even yourself!  And don't forget, if we make it to 1,000 likes and you are subscribed to our mailing list, you will get a free full length adventure, The Goblins of Mount Shadow in PDF.  Trollzah!

1st stretch goal reached, now onto the next!

Yahoo and Trollzah!  We have reached $6,000 in our Kickstarter! Now we are working our way toward $8,000, where the Leather Collectibles and the 25 extra pages go into the Codex and much much more! Thanks so much for helping to make this happen. If you haven't seen it yet, or want to check out the numbers for yourself, go to http://kck.st/WOy1P7

Don't forget we've got the contest going until Midnight tonight too, so check out the blog for that to find out more: http://bit.ly/111z0hk

FREE book contest: Supersized!

In addition to the winner of our Facebook "like" contest getting a free book, if we get to 1,000 likes by Midnight tonight (Monday), we will offer up a FREE copy of an adventure, The Goblins of Mount Shadow, to everyone on our newsletter list.  All you need to do is share this post with all your contacts, get them to "like" our page and help us get to 1,000 by Midnight tonight and everyone will get a free copy of the adventure.  We are only about 150 away right now so we are very close!

Daily Cosplay

The Cockatrice

This is one weird monster. It is difficult to make a rooster look ferocious. Now, don't misunderstand, a rooster can be a wicked creature. They are very aggressive and attack with wicked-hooked claws on their feet. They are related to the tyrannosaurs rex after all. However to take the head of one and put it on a serpents body is rather odd . . . . it is truly a beast of chaos.

The cockatrice is born when a rooster lays an egg and a toad sits the egg until it hatches. The beastly creature that emerges is evil, poisonous and able to turn you to stone.

These creature fist appears in the De Naturis Rerum in the 12th century by the acclaimed scholar Alexander Neckam.

This miniature goes a long way toward making it look pretty cool.

Armor Up (Starblazers Style)

Tractor Beam

Scientists have invented a tractor beam. Working on new medical technology scientists in Scotland, working with scientists in the Czech Republic, have discovered a way to attract particles with a light source. Generally light pushes objects away from it,  however,

"The method relies on negative radiation pressure and can actually have practical uses in fields like medicine, where cells would be possible to sort based on material by pulling them aside into groups."

Read More!

Kickstarter -- FINAL DAYS!

With only 5 days left on our Kickstarter for Codex Celtarum, we are around 500 dollars short of our goal of $6,000.  This means we need at least 100 dollars a day to make it and get those rewards out to the people making pledges.  There's some great rewards in there, your name in the book, free copies, extra goodies.  One of my personal favorites in the Exclusive Dice Tower, made especially for Castles & Crusades from Fat Dragon Games.  They are an awesome company, good friends of ours, and they make great product.  Consider pledging today and helping us reaching that goal.  There are plenty of levels and rewards to choose from, so take a look and let us know what you think.  Thanks and Trollzah!

Word of the Day -- Wetware

That's using the old wetware!  When the computer terms "software" and "hardware" sprang to life in the mid-20th century, a surge of visions and inventions using the new technology immediately followed … along with a revival of the combining form "ware." An early coinage was "wetware," which began circuiting techie circles in the 1970s as a name for the software installed by Mother Nature (a.k.a. the brain). Other "ware" names for people and their noggins have made a blip in our language — for example, "meatware" and "liveware" — but none have become firmly established in the general lexicon like "wetware."

Facebook contest: Win a free book!

It's getting dark and the trolls are coming out to play! And being trolls, we like to be liked…”us poor old no good miserable robbing trolls” don’t you know…so spread the word! We want to hit 1000 likes before Midnight on Monday! Help us and we’ll give you a FREE BOOK of your choice (so long as its in print, CKG, MT, PH, etc.)!

Every person you share the page with, have them “like” Castles & Crusades, and vote for you by posting your name on the Facebook page, and whoever gets the most votes wins the book!  Check the page often as the leaders are going back and forth; hurry and get your name in the running and pick up the free book!

Happy Troll Hunting!

Trollzah!

Daily Cosplay

Abrams to the Death Star

It looks like JJ Abrams has signed on to direct the next installment of Star Wars. Not sure what to make of this. Star Trek was a good movie, but Abrams has a tendency toward explosive, fast moving, shots. These are good in an action film like Armageddon and even did okay on Star Trek . . . but Star Wars has a different tone to, more of the epic I think. This is greater than life type deal.

We'll see.

Ridley Scott would have been a much better choice.

Armor Up

Pegaso Models

Army of Darkness

Its time to give this one another look! Great movie!

Post Dragon Attack

Here is the only sign the Sir Roderik will not make it to the castle on time...

Tatev Monastery

A few days ago I stumbled on a picture that was really cool, but couldn't find its location. Viewer Mr. Kevin (we know little beyond that for the illusive Mr. Kevin) was kind enough to point out that it is a monastery called Tatev, located in Armenia. It sits upon a plateau overlooking the Vorotan River Gorge. Very beautiful structure. Originally built in the 9th century it has survived earthquakes, fires, and invading armies (the Turks gave it a hard going over in 1170 and burnt some 10000 manuscripts). It survived on housing monks up into the 20th century.

The wiki article.

Restoration of.