Beyond the River ~ Kickstarter Project

"Beyond the River" is a tale of Juergan of Astode, a knight of some renown. Weary and spent, seeking only the solace of quiet, he's retired to the Barren Wood, upon the banks of the Hruesen River, in the shadow of the Blacktooth Ridge. There he's built his home. and there he lives out his days in meagre comforts.

But now, he stands before the Baron Botkin . . . .

"My niece, Clarrisa, fell into the cold waters of the Hruesen River. The current was swift there, in the river's bend, and it pulled her down stream. It was so fast. Areth went after her, but he never came up. But she did. Clarrisa did. She crawled out of the water on the far side of the river, upon the feet of the Blacktooth Ridge. She called to me, but I could not hear her. I could not hear what she was saying. The water was too loud and my blood was rushing. That's my sister's daughter. She's only nine.

"We went to get boats, but it took us too long. By the time the fisherman had uncovered their craft and brought them down to the river bank, she was gone.

"As the light failed we found her trail. She crawled up the bank. This we know. But it was snowing already. Not much. Just enough to cover her trail. We lost her. But there's been no murder of crows, no circle of death, no wolf calling its mates to the feast. She's alive. I know she's alive.

"Juergan. You know the ridge. You know what dwells there. I charge you, as a knight of New Aenoch and servant of the Empress, to cross the Hruesen River and find my niece. Alive. Failing that. I want vengeance. But alive or dead, whatever took her, dies."

"Beyond the River" is the title for episode one of d20 Entertainment's live action drama, the first of what we hope are many tales of Juergan of Astode. 

Written by Stephen Chenault, the Troll Lord of Troll Lord Games, author of over 20 RPG supplements and the Codex of Aihrde, and Produced by d20 Entertainment. This is an epic moment in the history of Castles & Crusades and the World of Aihrde. Don't miss out!!! Only two days left!

A message from d20 Entertainment: We are passionate about bringing this story to life. We have the ability, the talent, and equipment, however we need your financial support to make this happen. If you can't afford to financially back this project, please post this link to you favorite gaming board, or on Facebook, twitter or g-mail. Help like this is just as important as financial backing. And we truly appreciate it. 

Together, we can tell a fantasy story that gamers can be proud to show the rest of the non-gaming world! Pledge here!

World of Aihrde

Movie Trailer ~ Hunger Games

Armor Up

Ork Hunter

UFO Files

When a private plane spotted a chunk of shiny metal laying the Arizona desert, surrounded by moving figures, they called it in. It caused a chain reaction up the line of communication so that within short order two Air Force F16's flew overhead (hopefully it was the Air Force, and not some other country's F16s as that would probably be bad).  The F16s did a low pass to see what the debris field was.

Sadly it wasn't a UFO. No new Rosewell from the wild deserts of the western United States. It was a space craft built and set in the sand by MUFON. Specifically a craft built by MUFON to train the 25 or so Field Investigators that signed up to learn how to properly investigate various sitings. While in their boot camp the private plane passed over and about 20 minutes later the F16s roared over head, passed low to have a look see and then went on their merry way. This was followed about 20 minutes later by a sheriff's helicopter.

To paraphrase one of the observers, for a government that has no official policy of investigating UFOs they sure sent out a lot of manpower to investigate that unknown object in the sand.

Read on!

Rocket Ship Explosion

This is pretty amazing. An unmanned rocket, the Antares, exploded seconds after take off. It was bound for the international space station with supplies of food, equipment and some experiments. The light from the explosion is nothing short of brilliant in color, I'm guessing from the jet fuel.

Daily Cosplay

This one insanely elaborate cosplay. Don't miss the extra arms. Very cool!

Complete with blood splattered head.

Not Very Strange

But very Dr. Strange.

It looks like Marvel has cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange. Though I always picture Strange as an older guy, what with his long, dropping, black mustache, I can see Mr. Cumberbatch in the role. He was perfect for Sherlock Holmes of course and did the voice from the Hobbit very cool. His real telling performance is Khan in the 2nd Star Trek movie (the reboot of course). He definately has stage presence, which is what Strange needs.

Word of the Day -- Bard

In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.

Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland and Highland Scotland, with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period the term "bard" acquired generic meanings of an epic author/singer/narrator, comparable with the terms in other cultures (minstrel, skald, scop, rhapsode, udgatar, griot, ashik) or any poets, especially famous ones. For example, William Shakespeare is known as the Bard or the Bard of Avon.

The word is a Celtic loan word from Scottish Gaelic bàrd, Irish bard, Welsh bardd. In Scotland in the 16th century it was a derogatory term for an itinerant musician, but was later romanticised by Sir Walter Scott.

In medieval Gaelic and Welsh society, a bard (Scottish and Irish Gaelic) or bardd (Welsh) was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies for his lord (see planxty). If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire (c.f. fili, fáith). In other Indo-European societies, the same function was fulfilled by skalds, rhapsodes, minstrels and scops, among others. A hereditary caste of professional poets in Proto-Indo-European society has been reconstructed by comparison of the position of poets in medieval Ireland and in ancient India in particular.

Bards (who are not the same as the Irish 'filidh' or 'fili') were those who sang the songs recalling the tribal warriors' deeds of bravery as well as the genealogies and family histories of the ruling strata among Celtic societies. The pre-Christian Celtic peoples recorded no written histories; however, Celtic peoples did maintain an intricate oral history committed to memory and transmitted by bards and filid. Bards facilitated the memorisation of such materials by the use of metre, rhyme and other formulaic poetic devices.

Another Human . . .

If you haven't checked out Key & Peele, you should.

Upon the Downs

These great trees tower above the moss covered ground, their leafy canopies blotting out the light of the sun. However, grassy knolls, open meadows and slow-running brooks pocket the forest deeps and break the sinister visage cast by the old trees. Here, where the sun shines, lilies, bluebells, hyacinth and other wild flowers bloom. At night, the light of the moon and stars spill through, and when the evening is still, the fey come out to dance, sing, and play. The forest is thick with these creatures. Remnants of the Ethvold, they came here long ago, before the Wall of Worlds girded the earth from the trackless wastes of the Void. Sprites, nymphs, nixies, and pixies, as well as water lilies, blue bells, and the like abound throughout the deep recesses of the forest. There are darker fey as well; bogarts, shadows, bullworts, and carp snails are often found causing mischief. Indeed, many believe that the Darkenfold’s nature is derived from the Queen of the Unseelie Court who resides in the forest’s southern reaches, beyond the Downs, in the Lilly Fare.

~The Codex of Aihrde

Into the Darkenfold

Here ya go: Start Wars

Joint Light Tactical Vehicle

The U.S. Dept. of Defense is working on its latest combat vehicle, the JLTV. Designed to replace the Humvee the JLTV can operate in all manner of combat situations, but is specifically designed to protect troops in rear echelon areas. More recent wars have shown battlefields with no fronts, which means that every trooper is a target.

We trolls really need to get moving on our Siege Engine game: Comrades.

Only .99 Cents!!!

Bring in Halloween right with our ALL NEW adventure: Night of the Spirits. Get it now for ONLY .99 cents. Print and Digital! That’s a buck!

Also don’t miss The Nine World’s Saga Volume II: Odin’s Fury, its hot off the presses!

Daily Cosplay

Movie Trailer ~ Extraterrestrial

I want to believe...but  holy crap!

Armor Up

Pegaso Models

Word of the Day -- Tollhouse Inn (and cookies)

The Toll House Inn of Whitman, Massachusetts, was established in 1930 by Terry and Ruth Graves Wakefield. Toll House chocolate chip cookies are named after the inn.

Contrary to its name and the sign, which still stands despite the building burning down in 1984, the place was never a toll house and it was built in 1817, not 1709. The "toll house" and the "1709" was a marketing strategy.

Ruth cooked all the food served and soon gained local fame for her desserts. In 1936, while adapting her butter drop dough cookie recipe, she became the inventor of the first chocolate chip cookie using a bar of semi-sweet chocolate made by Nestlé. The new dessert soon became very popular. Ruth contacted Nestlé and they struck a deal: The company would print her recipe on the cover of all their semi-sweet chocolate bars, and she would get a lifetime supply of chocolate. Nestlé began marketing chocolate chips to be used especially for cookies. Ruth wrote a cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, that went through 39 printings starting in 1940.

Ruth died in 1977, and the Toll House Inn burned down from a fire that started in the kitchen on New Year's Eve 1984. The inn was not rebuilt. The site is marked with a historical marker, and that land is now home to a Wendy's restaurant and Walgreens pharmacy. Although there are many manufacturers of chocolate chips today, Nestlé still publishes the recipe on the back of each package of Toll House Morsels.

Not Mountain Dew

But the Roman gladiators drank something or the other. Archeologists unearthed the intact skeletons of several gladiators in Turkey not long ago and in attempt to understand their diet better analyzed their bones. It would seem that they have double the normal strontium to calcium that others do (or did, as I have to assume they are comparing that to people who lived then and not to people who live now, as comparing it to people who live now would be silly).

This has led them to believe that they did have something different in their diet, the gladiators that is. They speculate that the sand pit warriors were drinking some kind of energy drink, perhaps made of ash, water and vinegar. Apparently Romans used ash as a spice, for a smokey flavor.

Read on!

On the Other Side

Sons of Tefnut

It is then that the dwarves of Grundliche Hohle set aside all memory of the Kinship Disputes and set forth with a great host. They crossed the great Bridge of Ursal and scattered the goblins there. Crossing into the Massiff, they bridged Lake Orion and came to the foot hills of Norgorad-Kam. King Fundin II led them.

The goblins turned, fearing to be cornered in the high mountains between a hammer and anvil, and rallied, but the dwarves were too great and Fundin swept the goblins from the hills and valleys. An army from the Brass Halls issued forth and joined Fundin, so that the Kings fought shoulder to shoulder, driving the goblins to ground everywhere they went. But the host was vast and rallied, strengthened by fresh ranks from the Bleached Hills and they pushed the dwarves back almost the gates. And thus it was that the sons of Tefnut came to their aid, the men of the Ethvold. They came with spears and bows and fell upon the goblin, catching them wholly unawares. And the goblins turned and to fight and the dwarves fell upon them from above. In this way the greater host of the goblins in those lands were destroyed and driven into the Ethvold, where the Ethrum, sons of Tefnut, hunted them like wild animals and slew them wholly. None, of all that host, ever left the Ethvold.

~The Codex of Aihrde

UFO Files

West Virginia is getting buzzed apparently. In the past three weeks they've had four sightings of low flying craft, all unidentified. And its not small.

In one sighting ten coal miners and or friends/family members saw three triangular shaped craft about the size of a football field pass over the tree line roughly 500 feet above the ground.

In another sighting, very similar to what happened in Colorado last week a softball sized globe was seen moving through the clouds...presumably much larger at close range.

Lots going on in West Virginia. Read on!

I absolutely love the concept of alien visitors. The whole idea breaks the norm and offers the world a look at something utterly new and different.

Daily Cosplay

Booyah!!

Tractor Beams

Over in Australia (unless your reading this in Australia, then its under neath you) scientists have put together a tractor beam that can grab glass particles and pull them several inches. Essential the beam is a laser whose outer ring is hotter than the cooler inner ring...like a donut according to livescience. The beam was directed at small glass spheres, about .008 inches in diameter, those in the inner, cooler portion of the beam were pulled forward. Head over to Livescience for the full run down of how it works, its pretty cool.

Tractor beam, not too far away now.

Han!!!!!

Armor Up (Don Justo)

Daniel Lopez

John Carter Returns to ERB

Warner Brothers returned the film rights of John Carter and all things Barsoom to the fine folks over at ERB. Inc. That means there will definitely not be a sequel to the movie adaptation that came out a few years ago, but it does mean that maybe someone else will scoop it up and give it another go. 

John Carter and the setting on Barsoom has to be one of the coolest, unique and interesting world settings and characters out there. It has everything, from swords to science, guns to flying ships, exotic monsters, beautiful people, extraordinary action. Its really the world you want to be making movies about. 

What they need is a concrete story...which interestingly enough Edgar Rice Burroughs gave them plenty of, just adapt the first book baby! It would be bad ass!

Middle Earth's Epic Safety Video

Word of the Day -- Druid

A druid was a member of the educated, professional class among the Celtic peoples of Gaul, Britain, Ireland, and possibly elsewhere during the Iron Age. The druid class included law-speakers, poets and doctors, among other learned professions. Although, the best known among the druids were the religious leaders.

Very little is known about the ancient druids. They left no written accounts of themselves, and the

Now available

only evidence is a few descriptions left by Greek, Roman, and various scattered authors and artists, as well as stories created by later medieval Irish writers. While archaeological evidence has been uncovered pertaining to the religious practices of the Iron Age people, "not one single artifact or image has been unearthed that can undoubtedly be connected with the ancient Druids." Various recurring themes emerge in a number of the Greco-Roman accounts of the druids, including that they performed animal and even human sacrifice, believed in a form of reincarnation, and held a high position in Gaulish society. Next to nothing is known for certain about their cultic practice, except for the ritual of oak and mistletoe as described by Pliny the Elder.

The earliest known reference to the druids dates to 200 BCE, although the oldest actual description comes from the Roman military general Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (50s BCE). Later Greco-Roman writers also described the druids, including Cicero, Tacitus and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, druidism was suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and it had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.

Daily Cosplay

Valerie Perez

Dragon Fear

Frafnog did not pursue those hapless few. His rage was the fire of gods, and he turned north, intent upon vengeance against the God Emperors.

In towers of flame and fire he fell upon the cities of the Aenochians, and in his anger he cared not whether they were good men or bad. The Red God, Nehabak, fled in fear of the fell dragon, as he had no desire as yet to reveal himself. Frafnog scorched the lands of the Red River first, and then turned west and crossed into the lands of the Ethrum, and there hunted all he saw, burning towns and villages, boats on the rivers, men in their fields. Dwarves, elves, whatever creatures came into his view, all perished. The dragon moved over the Inner Sea, turning north along the mountains and crossing the plains. The beast visited his rage upon the Horse Tribes of Mardiu, and they fled from his wrath, or died on the steppes. He soared into the Channel Lakes to burn and scorch and leave his mark like none other. He passed down the Marl and brought a wave of destruction to the sea, scorching all that sailed its surface.

In the end Frafnog came to the lands of the Long River and Al Liosh. Coming from the south, he set all to ruin along the Udunilay, burning any and all, plundering, devouring, slaying all who challenged him. When Al Liosh at last stood before him, with her long walls of white stone, towers and temples, he hesitated. He flew slowly over the city looking upon the glory of its majesty. All there could see the weight of him and his size was beyond imagining. Four hundred feet long, and half as wide, wings that blotted out the sun. Frafnog, first born of Inzaa, his eyes emblazoned with his mother's ire.

When all had seen the dragon and the stink of his fear soiled the hearts of men, Frafnog fell, plummeting like a mountain into the city. The buffet of his wings

Dragons

The Friendly Ghost

I hope that after I cross over, that if I come back, I come back as a friendly ghost. What's with all the angry ghosts? I see the movies and every haunted house has some pissed off spirit in it, wandering around scaring the bejimmenies out of children. What's with that? They're all so black hollowed eyed, creeping around in fuzzy light, moaning and so on.

Movie Trailer (Sneak Peak) ~ Avengers Age of Ultron

Table Top Season 3 a Wrap

Wil Wheaton announced on his blog that they have wrapped up the third season of Table Top. You can find out all the games and players and other bits and sundry over at his site. Check it out!

Wil Wheaton!

Armor Up (Agamenon)

Winterland