Daily Cosplay (zombie)

Jessica Nigri

Survey

Hey folks we have another survey we're running, this time about your general RPG experience and preferences. If you can stop by and take a few minutes to fill it out we sure would appreciate it. Helps understand where we are going, or rather where we should be going.

And there's a FREE PDF if you do it and sign up or are signed up for the Trolls Tusk.

Thanks!

Survey!

Photo by Sarolta Ban

Greyhawk Discovered

Apparently its just after the Rain of Colorless Fire, because this sucker is on fire!

Astronomers have named planet Kepler -78B. This sucker is roughly the size of Earth but has the unfortunate placing of rotating a bit too close to its sun, so for the nonce, its a burning ball of fiery hell. The whole surface, or so it is speculated, is covered in lava.

Of course this does not necessarily mean it will always be such. Our own chunk of rock was once covered in fiery volcanoes and lava. But it cooled. Perhaps in the near future Kepler -78B's star will cool and give it a breather.

And the rain of fire will surely end . . . . then you must look to the Great Kingdom!

Wired.

I Have to Post This

I don't mean to cast any negative light on New York's Finest. I'm sure they do a hellova job, but this video is just down right funny.

Mark Wahlberg Steps Up

Looks like Mark Wahlberg has signed on to produce an movie about the young life of Julius Caesar. The film will cover his earlier years, before the campaigns in Gaul and the Civil War and his time as First Consul and Imperator. Specifically mentioned are his days as a hostage amongst pirates.

This is promising. Wahlberg rarely disappoints (well the plant movie, but we can give him a pass on that).

More at Deadline.

Armor Up (Roman)

Donnypollaert

Daily Cosplay (Captain Reynolds)

Walking Dead Re-uped

AMC has re-uped The Walking Dead for a fifth season. This after the opening of season 4 blew the socks off the ratings scale with millions upon million tuning in (I think about 13 million). The show has had some trouble in the producer market, picking up its third for season 4, though Scott Gimple has signed on for season 5.

I'm only one episode into this season, but its shaping up. What makes this show on so many levels are the actors. I have to say, these guys deliver. The writing is good, directing, hell just the concept, but these actors bring a touch of reality to the small screen.

So good news all the above.

Opportunity

The Mars Rover, Opportunity, is climbing a small ridge, Solander Point. The hill is part of the rim of the crater the rover is mucking around in and is roughly 130 tall. In route he's taking a gander at the various geologic time periods and has discovered that Mars endured a long period that was very wet, but a bit acidic.

Opportunity has been wandering about Mars since 2004, his twin, Spirit passed into the bone yards back in 2011.

Word of the Day -- Skald

Skald is a term for a poet.  Specifically, it is a poet who composed at the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking Age and Middle Ages. Skaldic poetry forms one of two main groupings of Old Norse poetry, the other being the anonymous Eddic poetry. The most prevalent metre of skaldic poetry is dróttkvætt. The subject is usually historical and encomiastic, detailing the deeds of the skald's patron. There is no evidence that the skalds employed musical instruments, though some speculate they may have accompanied their verses with the harp or lyre. 

 The technical demands of the skaldic form were equal to, if not greater than, the complicated verse forms mastered by the Welsh bards and Gaelic (in both Scotland and Ireland) ollaves, and like those poets, much of skaldic verse consisted of panegyrics to kings and aristocrats, or memorials and testimonials to their battles. The kings and nobles, for their part, were not only intelligent and appreciative audiences for gifted skalds; some of them were poets in their own right.

Skaldic poetry can be traced to the earlier 9th century with Bragi Boddason and his Ragnarsdrápa, considered the oldest surviving Norse poem. Bragi is considered the oldest and original Skald. However, many Skalds came after him, like Egill Skallagrmsson and Thorbjorn hornklofi, who gained much fame in the 10th century for the poems composed for the kings they served and of their own exploits. At this time, the Icelanders and Nordic people were still pagan, and their work reflected that, having many references to supernatural and ancient beliefs, such as gods like Thor and Odin, along with faith in seers and runes. The poetry from this time also can be noted for its portrayal of a "heroic age" for the Vikings, and "praise poetry, designed to commemorate kings and other prominent people, often in the form of quite long poems." For more information, you can click here.

Coming soon: Codex Nordica

Deep Thunder Rolled Across Their Shores

Amazon! Stay out of the Woolsworth!

It seems like Amazon is backing off her publishing arms. For the past year and some change the giant company has been pumping up her own publishing houses, branching into almost every type of print house. However, she suffered a bit of a whack a mole when Barnes and Noble announced they would not be carrying any titles published by Amazon that they wouldn't allow up on the Nook.

Amazon has recently fired the fellow in charge of all this hoopla and has not yet to date been able to sign any major authors.

They are also probably finding out that publishing can be expensive endeavor. Who'da thunk it?

Facebook Faceplant

Looks like Facebook is suffering from the ad revenue doldrums. The giant social marketing sight sells ad space to a wide variety of companies, but most of these ads run along the side of the page and are next to useless. They have a horrible click through rate, becoming I suspect, nothing more than sky on the edge of the reader's mind. Facebook is getting increasing pressure to do something constructive with its ad platforms.

TLG uses Facebook but has found that ads on the side generate no revenue. Boosting posts seems to have a little more affect. The platform is great for all of us to connect, fans of C&C and producers and vaguely interested parties. But of all the avenues we use to 'get the word out' its and twitter are the weakest.

So there may be some truth to the face plant.

Daily Cosplay (Wonder Woman Classic)

Movie Preview ~ Hunger Games

Congrads to Reaper

Our friends over at Reaper finished their Bones II Kickstarter at over 3 million. Davis got his Reaper I Kickstarter not too long ago and came barreling into the office like a mad hatter! He was so excited it pretty much shut the office down as he up-ended the box of minis and dumped them on Todd's and my desk. He's since left a trail of them from the office to the mail room, print shop, game room and his own laboritory.

So it is with great anticipation that we await this second second set.

And Congratulations to the all the folks at Reaper!

"Space Battleship Yamato" - Space Battle Compilation Video

The Japanese have test fired their first space canon. It is designed to shoot a large metal projectile at an asteroid. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency is set to launch a ship carrying the canon into space in 2014 and approach asteroid 1999 JU3. Once in range it will fire, blasting a crater into the asteroid, at which point it will land and pull samples from the asteroid, return to earth so its cargo can be investigated.

What they aren't telling us is that if they can blow a hole in an asteroid, they can certainly turn that canon around to earth.

Next thing you know....

Firey the Angels Fell

Superman and Dinosaurs

Even if you aren't a fan of sports, you gotta admire the way this band put together a great halftime show.  Look for Superman, Harry Potter and T-Rex!

Magicians Curse

Archeologists have unearthed a 1700 year old curse in Jerusalem. The curse is written on a tablet whereby the lady Kyrilla cursed Lennys over some legal dispute. The table is only a few centimeters high and was probably made by a magician for the lady in question.

It probably went something like this . . . .

Armor Up

Infinito 1885

Daily Cosplay

Planck Death

The European satellite that has been scanning the Great Empty for the past four years, collecting loads of data on the history of the universe has been shut down. The satellite's extraordinarily powerful telescopes were able to see into deep space, picking up vestiges of our continuum's birth. While hanging out in orbit where the sun's and earth's gravitational pull meet and offer some balance Planck mapped out the early universe, painting a picture of time that was, pushing back our existence by 100 million years.

Her early images challenged notions of what the universe looked like in her early state and the very essence of the Inflationary Theory, the Big Bang. The patterns of light and the fluctuations do not fit the model as put forward by the Big Bang.

But that discussion is not for Planck. As her lithium ran out her operators prepped her for shut down. They pushed her out of the earth's orbit and into the sun's. Ra picked her up, pulling her toward him. Operators turned her off and she went black, allowing her to go into a deep, quiet sleep.

Bon Voyage Planck!

Movie Trailer ~ Cap! Winter Soldier

I'm going there for Thanksgiving

The Largest Pumpkin Pie was made by New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers in Ohio on October 8, 2005. It weighed 2,020 lbs and measured 12 feet, 1 inch long.

That's gonna take a lot of whipped cream.  I wonder if Tom Tullis of Fat Dragon Games, a long time resident of Ohio, left any for me.

In the Dying Light

PhD in Zombies

The University of California, Irvine is offering an online course based on AMC's popular TV show "The Walking Dead."

The massive open online course is titled "Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s 'The Walking Dead.'" It's free and it will last eight weeks. The class will be offered on Instructure’s MOOC platform and taught by four UC Irvine professors from different disciplines: Zuzana Bic, public health; Joanne Christopherson, social sciences; Michael Dennin physics; and Sarah Eichhorn, mathematics.

"'The Walking Dead' provides many poignant case studies related to the scholarly areas covered in the course, and it helps that it’s one of TV’s most popular shows," Bic said in a news release. "There will be something for everyone in this course, which will explore concepts as varied as post-disaster nutrition, the foundations of human survival and stereotypes in a Darwinian environment."

Can Zombies type?

Send out the Clowns?

Whoever they sent in, they weren't clowns.

Authorities say gunmen dressed in wigs and red noses fatally shot Mexican drug lord Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix last week. The Tijuana cartel elder was shot in the chest and the head during a children's party at a rented house at a Cabo San Lucas resort on the Baja California peninsula.

But Mexican Clowns say it wasn't one of their rank.  "The people who do that, they're not clowns. I can swear on my mother's grave it wasn't a clown," Tomas Morales, whose stage name is Payaso Llantom, told the Associated Press. Morales said that clowns are frequently victims of robberies, and their costumes and masks are then used to commit other crimes.

Either way, it's probably best not to mess with clowns...

Dapper Criminal

Looking at this picture of this kid and you think, what the heck? This kid is sitting for a mug shot and facing a few months hard labor for stealing some shirts. Dirt poor, probably living in some tenement flat, or underneath one more the like, maybe a family, but dirt poor, crowded in a small space. He skips school and hangs out on the street raising a little ruckus.

But still he looks dapper as hell. 16, a long time tenant of the prisons, real name James Dooneley, but already has an alias as James Darley.

In the gilded age being cool was required.  More here.

Daily Cosplay

Daily Cosplay (Davis)

Dress for the Season

Its that time of year again. The season is changing. Cold creeping in on the western winds, pushing down from the north. Snow is in the offing and there are promises of a long hard winter to come.

So you must be ready!

DRESS LIKE A VIKING!

The tunics are warm, made of wool and a bit water resistant. By a bit I mean not really at all.

That hats are fashionable and the leggings cling to your legs unlike socks that constantly slide down into your boots and gang up on your arch and heel.

Plus they can be mismatched and no one cares.

Tired of your jacket choking off your movement? Can't bend your arms? Leave it all behind. Get a cloak! Not only does it offer complete freedom of movement, it cleans the snowy path behind you and hide your tracks

Good for women too! great floor length dresses and tunics!

         

And you can accessorize the whole ensemble. You can carry knives, spears, axes, spears, shields and other various and sundries.

MAKE YOUR OWN TODAY!

Theorems

Famous theories that popular culture and the internet (which is largely the same thing I suspect) think are proven.

The Big Bang. This theory postulates that the universe began in a very dense and hot state, when for reasons not understood it exploded outward. All the matter and antimatter hurling through the Void. Sort of like the All Father's Arc of Time theory . . . wait that last part is in the world of Aihrde. But regardless it is a theory. Places the universe at about 14 billion years old, which just seems . . . odd. the Big Bang explains lots of observable phenomena, but still has not been proven.

KT Extinction. This is the theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid striking the earth, causing either a global-killing fire storm (what Gary Gygax called the Rain of Colorless Fire) or since the theories of global warming have become dominate in modern discussions that the impact caused some type of atmospheric change. I never could figure out why the birds and the tiny mammals survived this event.

At any rate when you read articles that begin with "during the big bang" or "the KT extinction event caused" never forget they are theories only.

Much like TLG's production schedule. In theory . . . .

Ison To the Sun

The comet ISON is headed to the sun, or at least for a quick fly by, the unlucky traveler is headed a bit too close to Ra's eye and may not actually survive to return to the Oort cloud from which he came. He'll be passing by pretty closely on November 28th.

This photo by photographer, Adam Block. Pretty damn sweet!

Armor Up (Ulrik)

David Karaikal Rodriguez

Word of the Day -- Hawkshaw

A hawkshaw is a detective -- If you're a fan of mystery writing, you may have a favorite fictional detective. Perhaps it's Hercule Poirot (created by Agatha Christie), Lord Peter Wimsey (created by Dorothy L. Sayers), or Mike Hammer (created by Mickey Spillane). These and other famous sleuths from the mystery genre follow in the tradition of a fictional detective from the 19th century: Hawkshaw, a theatrical gumshoe introduced in the 1863 play The Ticket of Leave Man by British dramatist Tom Taylor. "Hawkshaw" gained further popularity as a general term for a detective when the name was used for a character in a comic strip by American cartoonist Gus Mager.

Frazetta

Movie Trailer ~ Hercules

Hmm I think we are mixing a little Roman into the Greek here.

In the Eye of Ra (er the sun)