Daily Cosplay

The Andanuth (Codex of Aihrde)

The Andanuth has been released to pre-order for the Codex of Aihrde. The Andanuth is Chapter One of the Codex and has been spotlighted here for many months as the Codex of Aihrde.

Here's another snippet.

In the beginning was the Void and the Void stood empty of all form. With his first thought the All Father brought light to the Void and in this light he could see the empty space from its beginning to its end and he saw that the Void was both enduring and timeless.

The All Father saw the Void as a place unrelenting and he cast out upon it. A great wind rose about him and this was his second thought and he governed it, so that it stood like a vessel upon the Void, wide and open and from it all his thoughts flowed as a river into the Void. But the river of his mind was not wholly ordered and the thoughts flowed out from the beginning in many directions, in streams great and small. Some crossed over one the other, some gathered in deep pools, others wandered into the Void alone and without governance.

And he perceived that the streams of his mind would fray and split on their journey through the Void, some going wither they would. It was ever the All Father's desire to fashion his thoughts into form and to order them as he would for he knew that his thoughts would take on a life of their own, and cause mishap to his design. And in this he was prescient, as is known. So he took care and made of himself a Shadow to watch over the streams of his thought.

The Shadow of the All Father governed the streams and set them all on a course that bent in the same direction, for it was the Shadow's task to make certain that all the streams and rivers of his thought ended together in deep pools. In this we see the All Father’s eternal strength; but it is also known that when the last of the rivers pool at the feet of the Shadow of the All Father, then the Shadow must consume time itself and thus bring the River of his Thought to completion. All know that those shall be the end of days, the Gonfod. Time and all things that are, or ever were, must end, and only the All Father knows what comes of the new beginning. But none know, save perhaps the All Father himself, when his creation will halt and the Gonfod come, or what might bring it.

Thus the Arc of Time, what the dwarves call, The River of Erde, came to be, from its beginning in the Vesk, the Vessel of the All Father’s thought, where resided the Ea-Iul, the First Wind, which flowed through the Void to its close in the Endless Pools. And Toth, the Shadow, was the first of the great order of beings known as the Val Eahrakun.

~The Andanuth, Codex of Aihrde

Frazetta "Wolves"

One of my favorite pieces by the famed artist.  I'm not sure how he does it, and maybe its just me, but there is no fear in the woman. Her posture is defiant, guarded. She is as the primeval world she's passing through. Fierce. Powerful. Raw.

UFO Files

A witness reported seeing a UFO in Alaska near Eagle River. A UFO ball of light appeared to hover over the river and move with course corrections according to the MUFON network's report. According to the witness, "It came toward my direction slowly, appeared to hover, and then adjusted course and left gracefully within 10 seconds." He was walking home from a friends when he spotted the UFO.

Here is one infared photo, the others have the back drop of the night sky. Check out the full UFO report.

It appears to be a planet actually, but with the way it moved, assuming his report is accurate, makes it a little less likely and a little more interesting.

Armor Up

Sergey Popovichenko

Monsters

Jeff alerted me to this pretty cool short flim, after reading/watching Babadoock post below.

Pretty cool!

Thanks Jeff

Germany is Airborn

It looks like the Germans are going to beat everyone to the punch. DHL, a shipping company not unlike UPS in the United States, has announced a drone service. Its goal is to delivery urgent packages to remote locations. Presumably these would be medicines, etc etc. 

The drones will be completely automated and carry somewhere between 2-11 pounds of material. 

This is a perfect way to get urgently needed Castles & Crusades Collector's Black Box to people in the Alps, Black Forest and other sundry places in the heartland of the heartland!

Grizzled Dwarf

Shatner's Back

I love this guy. Always have. Captain Kirk is one of the iconic fiction characters of the last half century, not far behind Superman. It was natural of course that he should not be in the rebooted films as he has no place for it (though I was a little miffed that they didn't use his voice to do "To boldly go..." at the end). I thought Spock's was a little contrived (the time travel bit and all).

Despite that rambling. Shatner has confirmed that they are considering him for a small role in the upcoming 3rd installment in Star Trek reboot. Not sure what it will be, we'll just have to wait.

What they need to do is make a TV show starring Shatner and Nimoy and the even the rest of the old crew, placing them in supporting roles for a new show that takes places a few years after the original.

Daily Cosplay

Its in the Funny Pages (comic growth)

Over at IcV2 we are hearing rumors that the comic market is growing. Up quite a bit, 22% in the last year, from 715 to 870 million. That is up quite a bit. TLG Is up more than that so I don't doubt the number. I think the entertainment market has in general been climbing back up in the past few years.

The article mentions the increase in children's graphic novels and the more women in the market place. They don't give any stats, and thought I don't doubt the information, I would really like to see what the stats are on new buyers below the age of 15. That is really indicative of what to expect in the future.

And that brings us to the importance of the long term trend. If last year's sales were down below average that growth isn't that impressive, its just correcting itself to where it was...though I do not believe this is the case.

The article mentions an upcoming conference for publishers and retailers to learn more about these trends. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

The above is Jill Pantozzi from TheNerdyBird.Com

Epic

Amazing Adventures Kickstarter (LAST DAY)

Amazing Adventures is the science and sorcery, pugilistic pummeling, gun-toting, sword-wielding, B17-flying, gadget carrying role playing game and today is its LAST day on Kickstarter!

You have less than a day to help us bring out the third hardcover book in the Amazing Adventures RPG. Head over and pledge and keep spreading the word!!!

Pulp

Movie Trailer ~ Babadook (new)

First. This title is BEYOND COOL!! I love it. One of the best in a long time.

Secondly. Who would read that kind of book to a child at bed time??? Good lord. It would scare me and I'm like 42 million years old or something.

Third. Turn on a light.

Fourth. This looks flipping awesome!

Word of the Day -- Film Noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly

those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is

associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist

cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from

the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.

The term film noir, French for "black film", first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era. Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noirs[a] were referred to as melodramas. Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars.

Film noir encompasses a range of plots: the central figure may be a private eye (The Big Sleep), a plainclothes policeman (The Big Heat), an aging boxer (The Set-Up), a hapless grifter (Night and the City), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime (Gun Crazy), or simply a victim of circumstance (D.O.A.). Although film noir was originally associated with American productions, films now so described have been made around the world. Many pictures released from the 1960s onward share attributes with film noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially. Some refer to such latter-day works as neo-noir. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s.

Armor Up (Into the Future?)

Do They Teach in School

Of course birds didn't evolve in one fell swoop from dinosaurs. Livescience. Do they teach evolution in school or just ramble some platitude about monkeys and bananas and humans start on three legs and end on three legs.

Evolution is about adaptation.

A World that Never Was

I love the  concept of these giant floating launch pads. Science Fiction is littered with them. But alas, they proved impractical if not impossible. Too easy to see, too slow and too easy to knock out of the sky.

But flipping cool nonetheless!

Daily Cosplay

Of the Binding of the Sun & Moon

When Unklar saw that the Day Star burned bright but held no life of its own, and the Evening Star was the same, and the Shroud of Darkness weakened what little light they held, he tracked down the Sisters in the limitless waste of the Maelstrom and bid them return to Aihrde. Unklar took the shape of an elderly man with long beard and kindly visage. In his image he looked as an old dwarf, or other kindly being, and though the Sisters knew Unklar, it softened their minds to him. He recanted his evil deeds, speaking regretfully of the world’s suffering and the death of many plants and animals, and he bid the Sisters return to make the world thrive in their light. The Sisters resisted only a little, for they were possessed of a great sorrow at all the loss, and Unklar cleverly cast himself as a wounded creature who had meant no harm. They returned then to Aihrde and too late learned his great deceit, for in the deeps of Aufstrag he had forged great chains, the Urlnarch.

When the Sisters came to Aihrde, Unklar heaped them in the Urlnarch and bound them both to the world and the world to them. Thus the Sisters could not leave Aihrde of their own volition, but remained chained to it, and it is said that in the still quiet one may hear the grinding of the Urlnarch in the heavens over Aihrde as the moon and sun pass over.

The Moon and the Sun hurled now through the heavens apart and rarely came to each other, and they knew great sorrow, for ever in the past they had enjoyed one another the more when they raced through the heavens together. This suffering none could heal, even after the Dark fell from Aufstrag and returned to the Void beyond.

~The Codex of Aihrde

Movie Trailer ~ Jupiter Ascending (new)

Kickstarter! Final Weekend!

We are fast approaching the end of the Amazing Adventures Kickstarter. We've a long way to go and a short time to get there, so if you haven't already please fire over and Join the Fray. Spread the word, pledge or join the conversation!

AMAZING ADVENTURES!!!

Amazing Adventures is a table top RPG that uses the time tested Siege Engine to resolve all non-combat issues. It delves into the Pulp Fiction a wild mixture of science and sorcery, pugilistic pummeling, gun-toting, sword-wielding, B17-flying, gadget carrying adventure.

Fifteen Minutes to learn the system!

Fifteen Minutes to make your character!

A lifetime's worth of Fun!

Make it yours! Own it! Amazing Adventures (only FOUR more days left).

Flames of Stone

Ill Prepared

An Oasis in the Undeeps

As we begin to get a better handle on what lies beyond the bounds of our own solar system . . . and we really don't even have a small understanding I suspect . . . we see more and more the possibilities of what might lie in front of us.

Explorers have discovered water vapor in the upper reaches of the atmosphere of a planet, Hat P11-B, circling a star some 125 odd light years away in the Cygnus constellation. Little more is known about the planet itself. Livescience

But what is known, is that we now have an Oasis in the Undeeps. If we can get there, we can harvest the water, using it as fuel and food, a rest stop on our way toward conquering eternity. 

One day you'll see a large floating city in the clouds of that planet. 

Mark my words.

Armor Up

To Isengard! (Tolkien Reads)

This is one of my favorite pieces of anything from the Lord of the Rings. I love Tolkien's rendition of the Ent's marching to war. I always read it slower in my head as Treebeard made many comments about being hasty, but Tolkien reads a little faster. The Master knows best of course, and the Ents, they were roused after all . . . 

Word of the Day -- Neutrino

A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with half-integer spin. The neutrino (meaning "little neutral one" in Italian) is denoted by the Greek letter ν (nu). All evidence suggests that neutrinos have mass but the upper bounds established for their mass are tiny even by the standards of subatomic particles.

Neutrinos do not carry electric charge, which means that they are not affected by the electromagnetic forces that act on charged particles such as electrons and protons. Neutrinos are affected only by the weak sub-atomic force, of much shorter range than electromagnetism, and gravity, which is relatively weak on the subatomic scale. Therefore a typical neutrino passes through normal matter unimpeded.

Neutrinos are created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, or nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the Sun, in nuclear reactors, or when cosmic rays hit atoms. There are three types, or "flavors", of neutrinos: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos. Each type is associated with an antiparticle, called an "antineutrino", which also has neutral electric charge and half-integer spin. Whether or not the neutrino and its corresponding antineutrino are identical particles has not yet been resolved, even though the antineutrino has an opposite chirality to the neutrino. Most neutrinos passing through the Earth emanate from the Sun. About 65 billion (6.5×1010) solar neutrinos per second pass through every square centimeter perpendicular to the direction of the Sun in the region of the Earth.

Get Off the Train!

Daily Cosplay

The Weight of Things Wonderful

The Troll Dens are a’hopping.  And that is a good thing.  Keeps us busy and smiling.  Last night, Jason and Tim did a Q&A on rpgnet where they (mostly Jason) talked about Amazing Adventures, the Kickstarter and how Tim’s dog needs to go out a lot.

We also released a PDF of Monsters & Treasures to the backers of the Castles & Crusades Kickstarter.  That will be looked over for the next week, then if all is good it will go to the presses.  If you backed and you were due it and didn’t get it, fire an email to tim@trolllord.com and he’ll get you hooked up.

Finally, we still have a few of the Black Boxes that are signed and numbered I’m told, but I’m also told they are dwindling faster than a receding hairline.  So grab some Rogaine or the Black Box, but personally I think bald is beautiful so go for the Box.

Armor Up (Knights)

Movie Trailer ~ A Walk Among the Tombstones

Dang Romans

They got around for sure!

Archeologists found the remains of an ancient fort in Hesse Germany. The fort quartered about 500 troops with their families living on the outside. Not much is known about this region during this time, but probably the village around the fort turned into a more permanent village that lasted for several hundred years.

Then everyone bailed on it.

The above was not the fort  . . . . well it might of been, what the heck do I know!?

Music from Season 4 Walking Dead

This piece begins one of the later episodes in the 4th Season of the Walking Dead. It begins the story of Bob Stookey, a new character. Its a powerful episode. Watch it if you can.

Here's the piece:

Daily Cosplay (Velma and Daphne)

The Call Me Trinity

Whenever Steve and I would get bored with watching infomercials at 2 in the morning (these were our college bachelor days), we would scan the channels.  One night we came across a spaghetti western, They Call Me Trinity.  Hilarious, silly, and perfect for a late night watch.  Here's a movie trailer from those old days:

Word of the Day -- Sextant

A sextant is an instrument used to measure the angle between any two visible objects. Its primary use is to determine the angle between a celestial object and the horizon which is known as the object's altitude. Using this measurement is known as sighting the object, shooting the object, or taking a sight and it is an essential part of celestial navigation. The angle, and the time when it was measured, can be used to calculate a position line on a nautical or aeronautical chart. Common uses of the sextant include sighting the sun at solar noon and sighting Polaris at night (in the Northern

Hemisphere), to find one's latitude. Sighting the height of a landmark can give a measure of distance off and, held horizontally, a sextant can measure angles between objects for a position on a chart. A sextant can also be used to measure the lunar distance between the moon and another celestial object (e.g., star, planet) in order to determine Greenwich Mean Time which is important because it can then be used to determine the longitude.

The scale of a sextant has a length of 1⁄6 of a turn (60°); hence the sextant's name (sextāns, -antis is the Latin word for "one sixth"). An octant is a similar device with a shorter scale (1⁄8 turn, or 45°), where as a quintant (1⁄5 turn, or 72°) and a quadrant (1⁄4 turn, or 90°) have longer scales.

Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) invented the principle of the doubly reflecting navigation instrument (a reflecting quadrant—see Octant (instrument)), but never published it. Two men independently developed the octant around 1730: John Hadley (1682–1744), an English mathematician, and Thomas Godfrey (1704–1749), a glazier in Philadelphia. John Bird made the first sextant in 1757, and they are still in existence on United States Naval Warships as of 2014. The octant and later the sextant, replaced the Davis quadrant as the main instrument for navigation.

Scotland

It would appear that Scotland will remain a part of the UK.  Makers and drinkers of scotch whiskey can breathe a sigh of relief.  Scotch is big business in Scotland, second only to oil in export, so today's vote means defeat for pro-independence, but a victory for lovers of the fine drink.  Read more about the trials and tribulations that almost were, here...

Cosmos

I've been watching the newer version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos on Netflix lately.  I never really had a fascination for space until recent, but watching these shows has sparked some interest and frankly some amazement.  I'm reminded of the things I probably learned in school but forgot.  Anyway, Cosmos is good, but flashy.  I prefer The Inexplicable Universe.   Both are on Netflix though, so if you are of a mind, give them a look.  In the meantime...