http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9YtJC-Kd8
- possibly one of the most awesome animation videos of all time.
Sunday 13 December 2009
DnD
In todays DnD session, we went toe-to-toe with a lich. This was mildly entertaining, to say the least. The most notable part of the session was where the pregnant-with-a-baby-that-might-be-a-god barbarian (incidentally, my character) failed a will-save vs. dominate person. She could have potentially killed the party warrior (much disliked by all concerned; he uses my dice, damnit!) if he hadn't prudently fled, and came close to killing the party's NPC sorceror/rogue. Then the druid's heavily armoured and buffed up ape stepped in, which is where things got distinctly unhappy; I was expecting character death, but was fortunately saved by being plot-necessary. Meanwhile, the paladin, Alara, was laying into the lich, who promptly croaked it. Well, he really croaked it when the druid destroyed his phylactery, calling it out as revenge for the death of his mother and sister. Concinnity (the Barbarian) made her will save the next day and stopped wanting to kill everyone in the party, and all was happy. Then we did loot. Lots, and lots, and lots of loot. Huzzah!
That was pretty much the session - we only ran until six because Dan had to do some more work on the next bit.
That was pretty much the session - we only ran until six because Dan had to do some more work on the next bit.
Story fragment
It was a great day, the day they finally delivered Boat Town’s Goddess. The box was tiny and painted a cool white. Susan watched as she was carried from the liner to the hall, then followed her inside, closing the big wooden door behind her. One of the men tipped his hat to her as they both left, leaving her alone with the box.
“So” she said, surveying the box “You’re to be me when I’m gone?” She didn’t really expect a reply; it was only a pillbox, after all. With a little sigh, Susan began to strip, pulling her cotton dress over her head and neatly stepping out of her underwear. She left them in a neat pile by the box, then paused for a moment, surveying it. She was glad nobody else was here; she was afraid, and she shouldn’t be. It was a scary thing, giving oneself up to become a goddess.
She sat, cross-legged, the box in front of her, and hesitated, just for a moment, then opened it. Inside was a single white pill, coated, she noticed with a strange sense of irony, in sugar. She picked it up, her hand shaking, then popped it into her mouth and swallowed. And that was the end of her; in approximately one minute from the swallowing of that pill, Susan ceased to exist, and all that was left was the Goddess.
Saturday 12 December 2009
Roommates
My hall is one where most people share rooms; while unusual in most universities, this is fair enough. There's a housing crisis in Exeter University at the moment, as they let in too many students at the beginning of the year, meaning that many students were stuck in single(!) rooms with bunkbeds and the university charging almost normal rent, so I'm glad to have a room at all, really.
Obviously, sharing a room isn't easy; I've always had my own room at home, and it's annoying not to be able to do all those little things I do in private - scratching my arse, having a sex life, being horrifically messy, having the radio on as default... and then there are all the little clashes; she likes the window open, I like it shut. She likes going out and drinking and dancing, I like going to the pub or staying in. She likes Bob Dylan, his voice drives me mad. It is nice to know that if I do mess up horribly, or if I'm really ill, there's going to be someone else around who'll notice I'm missing or take me to the medical center though.
Last night was the Big Meal with the rest of my corridor - 23 people, most with vouchers, crammed into Bella Italia. It was Really Really dull; I was stuck down the end of the table with the people-who-barely-talk (not that I would have talked much, but it's nice to have some conversation around), and consequently spent most of the meal texting. The service was over-worked and horrifically slow (two hours for two courses! On a prebooked table! With a prebooked menu!), and by the end of the meal I just wanted to go home and die quietly.
Paranormal Activity was dead scary, although this thought isn't shared by everyone. I kept watching the background, expecting things to happen there - it was disappointing that it didn't, and I think they missed a trick with the bathroom mirrors - those big full-length things were asking for something to appear in/on them that wasn't in reality; even something just written in steam. But the sound effects department get serious kudos; I think they contributed significantly to the film, and I wasn't the only one in the cinema who screamed in the 'jump' scene at the end, which was totally unexpected (at least, if you hadn't watched the trailer). The ending scene was a brilliant use of silence and suspense that I think a lot of directors could learn from.
Marble Hornets posted 19.5 - why does he think that he would have taken the pills? Can't wait for update 20 - he's worked out where the red tower is, so he's probably going there... it might be some sort of confrontation.
Cthulu on Thursday rocked; we finished off the incident with the monstrous-thing-in-the-abandoned-monastery with SAN to spare, mostly because we put together a brilliant plan involving theatre lanterns and elder stones. The Follower of Cthulu had been released by some stupid real-estate developers (having been originally put there by Augustine of Hippo, bizarrely enough), and had eaten their souls. It then moved on to the local priest (the only one to survive) and some farmers. In the last session, we had created elder stones - not knowing quite how to use them - and had attempted to brandish them at the thing and drive it back into it's prison in the tunnels under the monastery. This was a big mistake; Dan was knocked unconcious, and I only just managed to drag him out because he'd dropped his stone which stopped the creature coming any further; we both thought we were going to die. The next day, we managed to get our hands on six theater lanterns and a generator, and set these up in the tunnels with our faithful driver (An NPC/PC with an occasional player and a huge family in the hope that we won't kill him off by accident when he's away) outside manning the generator. The way in which the tunnels were set up, we managed to block off two out of three of them, so that when we summoned it (again) it had to come down the tunnel we wanted. It did so, and the priest who had come with us threw our third elder stone into the tunnel so that it couldn't retreat, then we used the lights to drive it back into where it had originally been imprisoned, although we had some difficulty getting the doors shut and the elder-stone slammed on - Dan was knocked out again, and the priest had to stop in to lend a hand. Then we got a local mason to brick up the doors, and celebrated.
I still can't believe all characters involved survived - I was expecting a TPK. Paul (our GM) later said that he had added in the light weakness as otherwise it was simply impossible, and it made sense - apparently the last time he did it, only one character survived, and they only trapped it through a heroic sacrifice (somebody squeezed themself into the chamber and it followed them in there while the remaining character trapped it with the elder stone). But apparently our plan was a pretty good one >__0
We then laid a ghostly dog to rest - he was the dog of a local poacher/sheep farmer who had been nommed by the creature. The dog was shot by the local policeman (also nommed by the creature later) who had a grudge against it, and was now haunting the moors, or so we discovered. I thought he was trying to protect people against the creature by chasing them away from it (which was wrong, but would have been awesome), but it turned out he was in fact trying to find and get revenge on the policeman. We found his body, and persuaded the priest to bury him with his master; to our surprise, he buried him with full ceremony, and persuaded some of the villagers to come, leaving good-ol-patch with a hero's reputation; it turned out he'd been having a crisis of faith, which we helped with, so that was awesome :3
Obviously, sharing a room isn't easy; I've always had my own room at home, and it's annoying not to be able to do all those little things I do in private - scratching my arse, having a sex life, being horrifically messy, having the radio on as default... and then there are all the little clashes; she likes the window open, I like it shut. She likes going out and drinking and dancing, I like going to the pub or staying in. She likes Bob Dylan, his voice drives me mad. It is nice to know that if I do mess up horribly, or if I'm really ill, there's going to be someone else around who'll notice I'm missing or take me to the medical center though.
Last night was the Big Meal with the rest of my corridor - 23 people, most with vouchers, crammed into Bella Italia. It was Really Really dull; I was stuck down the end of the table with the people-who-barely-talk (not that I would have talked much, but it's nice to have some conversation around), and consequently spent most of the meal texting. The service was over-worked and horrifically slow (two hours for two courses! On a prebooked table! With a prebooked menu!), and by the end of the meal I just wanted to go home and die quietly.
Paranormal Activity was dead scary, although this thought isn't shared by everyone. I kept watching the background, expecting things to happen there - it was disappointing that it didn't, and I think they missed a trick with the bathroom mirrors - those big full-length things were asking for something to appear in/on them that wasn't in reality; even something just written in steam. But the sound effects department get serious kudos; I think they contributed significantly to the film, and I wasn't the only one in the cinema who screamed in the 'jump' scene at the end, which was totally unexpected (at least, if you hadn't watched the trailer). The ending scene was a brilliant use of silence and suspense that I think a lot of directors could learn from.
Marble Hornets posted 19.5 - why does he think that he would have taken the pills? Can't wait for update 20 - he's worked out where the red tower is, so he's probably going there... it might be some sort of confrontation.
Cthulu on Thursday rocked; we finished off the incident with the monstrous-thing-in-the-abandoned-monastery with SAN to spare, mostly because we put together a brilliant plan involving theatre lanterns and elder stones. The Follower of Cthulu had been released by some stupid real-estate developers (having been originally put there by Augustine of Hippo, bizarrely enough), and had eaten their souls. It then moved on to the local priest (the only one to survive) and some farmers. In the last session, we had created elder stones - not knowing quite how to use them - and had attempted to brandish them at the thing and drive it back into it's prison in the tunnels under the monastery. This was a big mistake; Dan was knocked unconcious, and I only just managed to drag him out because he'd dropped his stone which stopped the creature coming any further; we both thought we were going to die. The next day, we managed to get our hands on six theater lanterns and a generator, and set these up in the tunnels with our faithful driver (An NPC/PC with an occasional player and a huge family in the hope that we won't kill him off by accident when he's away) outside manning the generator. The way in which the tunnels were set up, we managed to block off two out of three of them, so that when we summoned it (again) it had to come down the tunnel we wanted. It did so, and the priest who had come with us threw our third elder stone into the tunnel so that it couldn't retreat, then we used the lights to drive it back into where it had originally been imprisoned, although we had some difficulty getting the doors shut and the elder-stone slammed on - Dan was knocked out again, and the priest had to stop in to lend a hand. Then we got a local mason to brick up the doors, and celebrated.
I still can't believe all characters involved survived - I was expecting a TPK. Paul (our GM) later said that he had added in the light weakness as otherwise it was simply impossible, and it made sense - apparently the last time he did it, only one character survived, and they only trapped it through a heroic sacrifice (somebody squeezed themself into the chamber and it followed them in there while the remaining character trapped it with the elder stone). But apparently our plan was a pretty good one >__0
We then laid a ghostly dog to rest - he was the dog of a local poacher/sheep farmer who had been nommed by the creature. The dog was shot by the local policeman (also nommed by the creature later) who had a grudge against it, and was now haunting the moors, or so we discovered. I thought he was trying to protect people against the creature by chasing them away from it (which was wrong, but would have been awesome), but it turned out he was in fact trying to find and get revenge on the policeman. We found his body, and persuaded the priest to bury him with his master; to our surprise, he buried him with full ceremony, and persuaded some of the villagers to come, leaving good-ol-patch with a hero's reputation; it turned out he'd been having a crisis of faith, which we helped with, so that was awesome :3
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