Fast and Furuios 6

Hmm I've enjoyed the franchise so far. Might as well in for number six.

The Tank?

The Frozen Salt Flats

Unklar’s freezing grip and icy breath are still felt in this fell region. Once a great and open country where dark warm grasses mingled with thick black firs. Here Unklar the Horned God met in battle with the Unburdened One, the abyssal lord Naarheit. They wrestled upon the plain for many long years. Unklar brought the cold winds of the Winter to batter his foe, but Naarheit weathered them with ease, setting a pestilence upon the Horned One so that the land turned foul beneath his feet and he grew weary with disease. But he cast himself in the fire of ice and burned the flesh of Naarheit's poison. Naarheit lay himself into the earth and unmade it so that all about him was maddened chaos; he hoped to unmake the dark god but in this he failed and suffered damnation.

Though Unklar sought out his foe, he could not unearth him so he trumpeted his voice and brought down the heavens in an avalanche of snow and ice. And the land groaned, too late did Naarheit see that he madness was spread too thin and a glacier of Unklar making settled upon him and froze him and crushed him into the very earth he held.

The battle poisoned the land leaving it a horrible discolored  testament to the foul nature of the being consumed by the icy ground. Twisted and vile, pale colors of hate and rage linger in the ground. The lakes are filled with brine and sulphates; the water ways run foul with it; the land of jagged rocks, deep gulches, narrow cliffs are all twisted by the death throes of the gods.

This poisoned the land utterly and from that day to this it is a horrid place of stench and evil.

What little lives in this land is most terrifying, for only Unklar’s minions could survive in such an inhospitable place. But tales speak of massive white bears with long shaggy hair and teeth the size of small daggers, of slim six legged lizards with brilliant white scales that glimmer in the moonlight, and other fell beasts. Some brave souls do make their way to these lands, for into them fled the last remnants of Unklar’s people after he was cast down and they brought with them great wealth. Wealth that has long since disappeared into the caverns and palaces of ice beneath the frosty wasteland.

Armor Up

 

Pegaso Models

Marvel Heroic and Firefly

Margaret Weis Productions announced they are closing the doors on the Marvel Heroic RPG. After a strong launch last year "it didn't garner the level of sales necessary to to sustain the rest of the line." But never fear MWP is barreling out even more Firefly RPG goodness, bundled adventures, that will help bring everything in their line up to date.

Trollzah for MWP!

Saturn Takes It on the Chin

Astronomers have unraveled evidence of meteors striking the ice rings around Saturn. Some are very small, but others leave a debris trail for thousands of miles. The rings are highly impressionable, unlike the gas giant itself, allowing us to see all manner of happenstance around our big brother planet. All this taken from Cassinni.

It just so happens that last night Saturn came close to earth, the closest it will in this rotation, making him highly visible in the night sky.

Word of the Day -- Heliacal

Heliacal -- relating to or near the sun — used especially of the last setting of a star before and its first rising after invisibility due to conjunction with the sun's rising and setting.

The word "heliacal" rose in the mid-16th century. Its source is the Greek word "hēlios," meaning "sun." Helios is also the Sun god of ancient Greece. "Heliacal" often suggests a relationship between a star and the sun as they appear to the human eye in the sky, as in our example sentences. It's also used in reference to the ancient Egyptian year, which began on the date when Sirius (or the Dog Star) first appeared on the eastern horizon at sunrise. English speakers have referred to this year as the heliacal year or the Sothic year. ("Sothic" comes from "Sōthōs," the Greek word for Sirius.)

Daily Cosplay

The Story of Trolls 5

Jumbled piles of stone reflect the collective memory; balance arrived at in a disorderly pile of half remembered stoney thoughts. Here they stand stacked one atop a pile of others that are thrown not so half carelessly so that their tumble is all there is. Somewhere there is a universal truth but no one much cares about it.

This continues the Story of the Trolls 4.

Four months stood like a chasm before the three would-be publishing assailants as Gen Con loomed on the not too-distant horizon. The crew needed four books and a map to make the convention one worth attending, to debut in style. With that the paraphernalia required to display at such a show was needed as well: banners, shirts, etc etc. To make it all happen the companies labor was divided up.

Mac had a handle on the legal side of things, being a lawyer by trade, and set about putting the business together. This meant filing the necessary paper work with the state, getting a tax ID number and the like. While that was hammered out, he took a short adventure, written by Steve for submission to Dungeon Magazine, and began expanding it into the Fantastic Adventure.

Davis returned to Wyoming, where he lived in a hotel, while working on an archeological dig. He took with him a rifle of papers and notes on his adventure Vakhund and the early concept maps of Aihrde. Davis, the three quickly learned (or rather Mac and Steve learned), was severely hampered by lack of regular internet access, most of his work, whether writing or email, was done at a small library computer. Contact was intermittent at best. It was amusingly noted that he had far more access to the sop rags at various out-in-the-woods bars (where he spent a great deal of time) than he did on the computer.

Steve had just finished his Master Thesis in history and had begun working on his PhD with the eventual plan of teaching, but this gave him time to set to compiling the Erde material and re-writing it to make it publishable; as well as working on The Mortality of Green, bringing it up to speed. He became Mac's back up if something needed filing as Steve was not working at the time. A shed in the back of his house was designated the packing point for the books when they arrived and it was designed thusly.

Despite the handicaps of time and distance the crew rapidly realized one of the key problems to over come was the art. The books needed covers and the guts needed maps and interior art. Mac began scouring the internet for artists. He had already a reserve in his contact list because of work on the early Seeker. From these he culled a few and hired them out for small pieces, but the real diamond in the rough was found online with Jason Walton of Myriad Studios. Jason lived in British Columbia and the whole crew immediately fell in love with the art. Jason did design art for logos and such and his own fantasy brand, and was more than happy to take up the task of covers and some gut pictures. Jason fit the crew's mold very well, being a cryptozoologist in the far north with long dreadlocks and a free wheeling lifestyle. And he loved beer. So a relationship was formed that has lasted until the present day.

The cover content required another round of beer besotted meetings, this time minus Davis, at Vinos. Outlines were given to Jason, in the briefest form and his artistic instincts allowed to fill in the rest.

Now work began apace and the crew, now four, were working long nights and late hours to bring the whole battle wagon to the show.

Beer of the Day -- Cisco Moor Porter

 

Alright, it's Friday, so instead of a Word of the Day, I decided it would be more appropriate to do a beer of the day. 

This beer, the Cisco Moor Porter, is one of my favorite winter beers that carries over well into the spring.  It's dark and sweet but not annoyingly so.  And that's about all the fancy talk I'm going to do. :-) I just like beer.  This one tastes damned good.  I like to try them all.  If you like stouts or darker beers, try the Cisco Moor Porter out.  Have a great Friday night!

Friday Sunsets

Evian Commerical

Okay, you've probably seen it by now, if not, its linked below, but this Evian commercial is pretty cool. Dancing babies back again and all that, but what's really cool is this guy . . .  the one on the right.  That dude's get up is awesome!