Light in the Darkness

Last night we gamed our weekly game. The characters, battered and wounded, built a fire for warmth, cook their food, etc. The only problem was that they were located on a long barren ridge in easy sight of the country around them. The fire, of course, a light in the darkness, attracted creatures, great and small.

I got to thinking why. There is a process called phototaxis, an organisms automatic attraction to light. Some animals have this and some don't. Cock roaches move away from light, they have negative phototaxis. Moths have phototaxis, they are attracted to light. The reasons for this are not completely understood. There are some single cell organisms whose flagella reverse direction the moment they leave the light.

Very interesting. Though that doesn't answer my question. Unless we're hard wired in our DNA as mammals to seek light.

post script: It attracted some bat-riding xa from Classic Monsters and a wicked looking cat beast that tackled the ranger/knight and ripped him up pretty good. Then wolves came to eat all the dead creatures. They had an entertaining night.

The Feint

This is an ability for fighter based classes and the rogue or assassin, well hell, just about anybody. The idea is that the attacker undertakes a fake series of blows or attacks to throw off an opponents defense by leading him to believe the attacks are of a certain type and then the attacker lands a real blow or series of blows. Basically, a feint or martial red herring.

The ability takes two rounds to undertake. In the first round, If a successful dexteiry check is made vs the opponents hd or level, the feint is successful. On the following round, the character attacks as normal but adds one half their BTH to the attack roll.

It would cost 500 points of xp added to advancement.

Daily Cosplay

Armor Porn

There just might be dragons . . . .

Curiosity's Playing Football

Curiosity has rolled up to a football sized rock on Mars and preparing to examine it with a spectrometer. The rock however looks like a tiny pyramid, which may be evidence of very tiny alien life forms on Mars. From Nasa.

Call of the Wild

Wolves

Here's some images that bring home how very large wolves actually are.When next your roaming characters meet a pack of wolves and you think, its only wolves, keep in mind these pictures. Look at the size of that snout compared to the face. Chomp. Bite. Grind. Die.

This couple has lived in their midst for years, to study their habits and apparently for their images to end up on this blog. The article is cool and the pictures even better. Daily Mail.

 

Into the Blue...Retirement

This is only a little sad. The end of an era so to speak. The Space Shuttle Endeavour is heading toward retirement. She took off from Houston today on her final journey. Nasa plans several low level flights so people can have a glimpse of the aircraft on its final voyage. We watched hundreds of missions unfold, and countless space walks, enjoyed amazing images of the earth and space, and of course learned more about the lands beyond our world, all because of this bird and her sister ships. Gods speed!

Read more here. 

Great Movie Lines

When Doc Holiday walks out into the street to confront Johnny Ringo in the movie Tombstone, he challenges him to duel with these words:

"I"ll be your huckleberry."

\

Old News Now, But Here it Hobbit 2

Free PDF of an Adventure!

Announcment: Free PDF! Who doesn't like free stuff? Especially C&C free stuff? Well, we have a deal for you. We want to spread Castles & Crusades throughout the hinterlands, and we need your help! If you agree to change your Facebook cover to a photo we send you for one week, we will send you a free PDF of an adventure, The Golden Familiar. All you need to do is send an email to tim@trolllord.com and he will send you the photo and instructions. After that, simply load it up as your cover, leave it up for a full week and you are good to go. Offer is only good until Friday morning, so act fast! Please put "cover photo" in the subject line of the email. Thanks in advance for helping spread the word!