What's Up?

Man, things never go the way you expect. Stuff changes. 

As you can see, there have been some changes to my website. Minor stuff that I always meant to do. 

On the right, I now have a contact form where you can email me directly. Also on the right is a new link to The Magic Candle Company, a product I very much enjoy. We haven't done candles since the house fire, but they carry oil diffusers. If you want the coupon code instead of the link, it is TOGWEB for 15% off. 

Other changes since the start of this year have been work-related. We picked up a second home, cute rental property in Clifton Springs near Canandaigua to simplify work travel. It's odd having a landlord again. My wife does travel nursing and this facilitates this. Having a vacation home is pretty cool, too. 

Canandaigua and Clifton Springs are beautiful places with a rich history and amazing natural resources. There are many homes dating back to the Revolutionary War. They have a game shop called Dork Forest Comics and is just down the street is a sulfur spring. Believe it or not, Elvis, Elizabeth Taylor, and Paul Newman used to visit the sulfur spas. 

The springs don't smell all that bad. Being a natural property of the springs the smell ebbs and flows from day to day. It is very pleasant due to the canal-like setting and the wildlife that inhabits the waters. 

Back in June, we lost our rabbit Bo (left). He was 6-7 years old and well-loved when we adopted him last year. My daughter insisted on this guy as he had little chance of being adopted due to his age. She was probably right. 

He jumped right in with our other pets and rapidly became a member of the tribe. Even the dog was sweet on him. He had his own feed patch of our garden, with cucumbers, basil, sage, and dill. 

Now that Bo passed, we discovered we can't do without a rabbit in our home. 

Please help us welcome Fiver. 

Like Bo, he is an atypical rabbit. He is a cross between a Continental Giant and a Flemish Giant. He could get quite big, as in fever-dream big. I hesitate to say exactly how big. When I was a child, I had 2 dwarf bunnies that refused to stay small. Rabbits are highly variable animals. 

He is a sweet guy. The picture to the right was taken a few weeks ago when he was 9 weeks old and about 7 lbs. We are waiting to have him neutered in the next few weeks. While we only have one bunny and we don't want ANY chance of having 11 bunnies. 

One of the ironic things about keeping cats and rabbits is both animals have traits that feed off of each other. Dominant cats expect to groom submissive cats while dominant bunnies expect to be groomed by submissive rabbits. Cats will groom rabbits. This is so cute but can have unexpected and disastrous results if not monitored. 

Our smallest cat, Seraphina has decided to take on the role of a dominant, mother cat with Fiver playing the role of the kitten. Where this goes wrong is Seraphine's interactions with the other animals. She shouldn't be big enough to dominate the 65 lbs. dog or even the 10-12 lbs cats, but she tries. The other larger cats attempt to out-dominate her by also grooming the dog which causes growling, hissing, and occasionally fights between the cats that the German Shepard Pit Bull mix tries to stop. Nobody has been injured but we have to keep an eye on it. 

Our dog Tori should have her own stat block here because she is not your average dog, but that is a post for a different day. 

Back to the website stuff. Recently, I lost all of my stats due to a change to Google Analytics. That's annoying. I am relearning my way around Analytics again. As a consequence, my Ko-Fi project has taken a hit, first slowing, then stopping altogether. 

On the DriveThruRPG front, I have implemented changes that will force changes to most of my products. You can still order them on DriveThru but soon they will also appear on my Ko-Fi page. This means people who like my products will have to make a choice, do you order from Ko-Fi or DriveThruRPG. 

So far, all of my products on DriveThru are PWYW. At this time, I have no idea how I will present my products on Ko-Fi. I am going to start with the Hex Pack and my character sheet for AD&D as these products will never change. I do not have a set time frame to do this. 

What choice are you making? If you want 100% of the proceeds of a purchase to go to me, then Ko-Fi will be your ticket. However, if you support DriveThruRPG and its various programs of philanthropy and support for new content producers, then the choice is clear. This is one of the many reasons I am moving glacially slow on this. I really love DriveThruRPG but I want to develop products off of their site, mostly because I see myself offering physical goods DriveThruRPG can't really support, as in not books. I need to be able to offer a one-stop shop which I believe will be Ko-Fi based. 

I didn't mean to write this much, but I think I am calling 2023 my rebuilding year. You are going to see new media in 2024, so I hope you hit those subscribe buttons and follow me in this process. 

Ahsoka TV Show

I have been pumped for Ahsoka and really enjoyed the first three shows. This post leads with a  picture of Han because he is my favorite Star Wars Character. It should be no surprise that of the Rebel Era characters, Hera and Chopper are my favorites. Those two have the same wacky dynamic as Han with every droid he meets. 

Which loops back to Ahsoka. This might be the worst-named TV show ever because so far, it has little to do with her. The story leans heavily on Sabine Wren, the plucky Mandalorian. Well, we already have a Mando, we don't need another. I'd like to see more of Hera and Chopper's antics, but Sabine's story has sucked me in.  

I love the way that the writers handled her story. At various points in Rebels, Sabine worked her way up to Chopper-level war crimes but found several different ways out of that path through her friends. In the opening of Ahaska, we see her relying on herself rather than friends to find her own path. It might not be a good path, but it is at least stable until she gets dragged back into the fight. 

She doesn't wear her armor, she hasn't succumbed to drinking, she isn't a good Jedi, she hasn't become a smuggler or businesswoman. She really is her own person on her own path. 

My wife who is a hardcore action-adventure hater enjoyed the show. The most appealing aspect for her was the fact that you don't need to know anything to watch. You don't need to watch The Mandolorian or all of the Rebels cartoons to care or understand the problem. I was surprised by that because Thrawn and Ezra are the hooks for most viewers. My wife sees them as McGuffins, something that makes the plot go. 

I like that they have cast Sabine as a Jedi padawan. It is interesting primarily because she has virtually no connection to The Force. I personally believe that this is a lie. My working hypothesis is that she has a deep connection to The Force but it has nothing to do with the quest for power, therefore she has no overt abilities. She is a character without an obvious ending because she has rejected them all. Power won't help her find what she desires. 

She could have been a great Imperial but she rejected it. She could have been the ruler of Mandolor, but she rejected that too. Sabine obviously has a way into the New Republic but is equally uninterested. She has no drive for power so having no visible Force powers is not a problem. 

Thank God, because no one needs another Rey. I don't dislike Rey, but they use her like a superhero in Star Wars World. What a waste. 

There have been a bunch of canon stories that touch on people without The Force taking sides and doing amazing things. Those amazing things usually have zilch to do with wielding a lightsabre, the Uber weapon of Star Wars. In fact, picking up a lightsabre is probably the last thing someone without The Force should do. But it happens, too. 

I can't wait to see what happens next. 

Throwback Thursday - The Anniversary Edition

Today, Jen and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. As we had an excellent dinner and drinks, I noticed the Riviera Theater across the street was advertising bands that were big when we started dating. One of them really jumped out at me: 

Part of the evening was talking about vacation plans for next year. We are going back to Saratoga Springs, NY to see Dave Matthews Band. Due to COVID, a yearly tradition went in the garbage and now we are playing catchup. Jen would like to see DMB twice next year, back-to-back dates in Saratoga. 

We've seen them a lot and I accidentally derailed the conversation.

Jennifer said, "Man, we have seen DMB so many times. I bet you haven't seen the same band twice in two days." 

"Queensryche, 3 times in 3 days. I've seen them so many times," I said. 

She was flummoxed. "We've seen Dave Matthews 18 times. How many times have you seen Queensryche?" 

I started counting. As I got into it, it was easier to count cities by country than concerts. 

Buffalo, NY. 84, 89, 91 
Darien Center, NY. 95, 97
Weedsport, NY. 95 
Rochester, NY. 84, 89, 91
Blossom, Toledo, and Columbus, OH. in 1997, one time each. 

In addition to these dates, I saw them in Syracuse twice but don't remember what year. 

I could swear I saw them more in Canada than in the US, but I was wrong: 

Toronto, ON. 86, 89, 91, 95
Hamilton, ON. '88, 89
Ottawa, ON. 89*

* There was a second disastrous show in Ottawa where I ate the pizza at Mcdonald's. I puked my brains out at the show. So embarrassing because I didn't even have a chance to figure out the drinking age. It was a straight-up bad food choice. (It would have been 18 but for some reason, I forgot Ottawa was in Ontario.) 

You'll notice a funny thing about that list. I met my wife at the end of 1996 and we started dating in 1997. She missed the Queensryche years. When we met, she had only been to one concert. I decided to change that and one of our first concerts was DMB. 

So, if we go to DMB in July of next year, I will have seen Dave Matthews a little less than I have seen Queensryche. Thanks to my wife, by virtue of our metalhead daughter, I will get to add one more Queensryche tally to the list and keep that band on top for another couple of years. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

Production Progress

Well, I have some artwork to share. Just a bit and not all of it for POP-001. Since I do not have much time to draw, I have to dedicate some time to practice. As spring goes to summer, I have even less time. To that end, I am pushing my release date to the middle of August. Can't be helped so I updated the countdown. 

Anyway, the main feature of this project is a cenote. In order to make the art work for me, I broke it down into layers on paper so I could scan different parts as different layers. I can preserve my ability to change things up without resorting to "Fix it in post" crap.  

The first image is the extent of the waters. As you can see there is a small island with a cave in the image. I haven't decided if I will do color or not, but I might. The two odd features in the center are holes in the roof which provide access to the cen. There is no other way into this area.  

In order to get down to the water and rock shelf around it, characters will have to navigate a series of wooden platforms. There are two paths down, which are loosely based on both the movie Goonies and several amusement park attractions. 

This area would have been a daily trip for most people from the temple surroundings. Life-saving water plus a cool and relaxing place to hang out would have drawn every villager. The platforms are connected by ramps, but on one side there is a slide, and on the other is a floating platform for resting.

You can click each image to enbiggen them. 

One image will be overlayed on the other but there may be special cases where I want to separate them. A bonus map might be one cause. I was thinking of using the same art as a tiny dungeon. I will have to redress the walls, but it's doable. 

I've been practicing with several other images to get used to inking with new pens. 

Many of these spaceships are copies of stuff from the Dynomo Joe comic series, while the last two are of a spaceship I designed for my Star Smuggler campaign.

This ship is called The Waterbuck and is nearly twice as larger as The Antelope class ship. When designing it, I thought about what a next-generation ship would have and would not have. This ship has the ability to mount 3 turrets. The one turret in the nose of the ship can be fired by the pilot as he or she flies. The other two need crew. The Waterbuck also has an advanced medical bay.  

What it does not have is a stasis unit or any concealed compartments. 

It also comes with a larger shuttle that can be carried externally or in one of the cargo bays. This shuttle has its own fusion drive and life support, so it can carry much more than the old shuttles. Older shuttles can still be used but they must be carried inside a cargo bay. 

As time permits, I will write up the details of both these ships. 

POP-001 - The Pantheon of Gods

I'm starting to piece together the Pantheon of Gods for the Lost Temple. It ain't much of a temple without a god or gods to worship. In this case, these gods became lost when the temple was abandoned so the PC's will not have any knowledge of them. 

The first god is going to represent liminal spaces. While he is not the most important God in the Pantheon, he is the vehicle behind the PC's ability to explore this magical place. Rather uncreatively, I've been thinking of naming him Lumo. I'll probably come up with something better. Lumo is a placeholder for now.

The term "liminal space" is new to me. This post is talking me through the idea. 

"Liminal spaces" refer to transitional or in-between spaces that are not easily defined or categorized. These are places where boundaries between different realms, states, or stages of being become blurred or permeable, creating a sense of ambiguity or uncertainty. Examples of liminal spaces include doorways, thresholds, bridges, crossroads, and shorelines, as well as certain times of day (such as dawn and dusk) or stages of life (such as adolescence).

This abandoned temple is somewhat like El Castillo, Chichen Itza. At least, that's what I've modeled the cover image after. I have come to discover that pyramids are really very boring as dungeons. They don't have many, if any rooms. El Castillo challenges my understanding of the pyramid dungeon as it was built on top of other structures. It does have interior spaces that have nothing to do with being a pyramid or temple. These would be an example of a liminal space, crossing from one time period to another or one function to another. 

Now this will require a modification of my original idea, adding long tunnels around the perimeter of the pyramid. These would serve as an entry point to the older temples, a sort of dungeon space, and a way into the vertical shafts. 

And Lumo has always been a part of this culture from the beginning. He is a prime mover here. Where these spaces exist, he is able to exist. 

In The Revenants of the Lost Temple, he will play a special, unique role in a modified wandering monster mechanic. The fun part of this is the player characters will have the ability to control the wandering monster rolls. It is simple and intuitive, while also creating an atmosphere of dread. 

I can't wait to get this thing released. I can't wait to create several other gods to join the heroes in their quest. 

Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks Boardgame and Campaign Expansion Review

I have some more content queued up for POP-001, but I have to get some bugs out of my system. I did a review of Star Frontiers with the intention of returning to review the expansion set Knight Hawks. It's been 2.5 years, so I should do it now. 

Title: Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks Boardgame, The Campaign Expansion, and Warriors of Light Module
Designer: Douglas Niles
Year: 1983
Pages: Boardgame book, 20 pages. Expanded book, 64 pages. SF0, 32 pages.
Number of players: 2+
Rating: ★★★

Star Frontiers is a classic science fiction role-playing game that was first introduced in 1982. One of the most exciting aspects of the game is the Knight Hawks expansion, which focuses on ship-to-ship battles. This expansion provides players with an opportunity to engage in space combat, which is a crucial element of the science fiction genre. This set was a boxed set like Alpha Dawn and even follows the exact same book and page count as the original. 

The key features of the Knight Hawks expansion are the ship-to-ship combat and ship design system. Players have the ability to design their own spacecraft from scratch, giving them the freedom to create vessels that suit their playstyle. The ship design system is complex but rewarding, allowing players to customize every aspect of their ship, from its weapons and defenses to speed and maneuverability. Plus every part of the customized starship simply works with the ship-to-ship combat system right out of the box. 

Players don't need to create ships to engage in ship-to-ship combat, the module will gift them with not just their own ship, but a whole fleet of ready-go ships. The combat system is turn-based and consists of three phases: movement, combat, and damage control. The phases are crucial for setting up attacks and avoiding incoming fire so as not to resort to damage control.

The combat phase is where the action really heats up. Players can choose from a variety of weapons, such as lasers, missiles, and torpedoes, to attack their opponents. Each weapon has its own unique characteristics, such as range, damage, and accuracy. 

The game uses what I call a Chocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry system of weapons and defenses. There are missiles, lasers, proton beams, and electron beams. I seem to recall neutron beams, but I think stole that from Starfire, another excellent game from the time period. Specific attacks are modified or negated by specific defenses which creates a wild dynamic where ships might have the WRONG type of firepower. As confusing as the terms are, there are only three or four so you can roll with it pretty easily. 

There is a damage control phase, where players can repair any damage their ship has sustained during combat. This phase is vital, as a damaged ship is less effective in combat and can be destroyed more easily. Players can repair damage to their ship's hull, engines, weapons, and defenses, but doing so requires time and rolls against the DRC rating of the ship. It is far less complex than StarFleet Battles and can be adapted to be more Traveller-like by ignoring the DRC for some aspects and allowing characters to use their new starship skills to get stuff done. I wouldn't suggest making every repair a character skill roll, but the nugget of the idea is there. 

I play StarFleet Battles, so I can't call this set complex or deep, but it has Basic and Advanced rules can get new players going with minimal fuss. Was I to stop the review here, the boardgame rules are stand-alone and would get 5 of five stars. 

You'll notice that I gave this set 3 stars. That is because the integration with Alpha Dawn sucks. In Alpha Dawn, we left the characters with 3 PSAs with a max of 6 ranks. Knight Hawks throws in 4 more Star Ship Skills which are not PSA, but dependent on PSA. And require them to be nearly maxed out. 

What?  

On day one of purchasing the box set, you are months away from having your old characters gain the necessary skills to use this set. That's garbage. What does firing a gyrojet weapon at a tank have to do with lobbing a giga-ton nuke at a ship in orbit? Driving a car is related to jumping a spaceship? No. That shouldn't be a thing. 

I could explain the way I handle this hitch, but instead, I will ding this set 3 stars and allow you to engage with your players as you see fit. I WILL give this set one additional star for adding more vehicles and space combat into the mix while resolving the chronic "First World Star Frontiers Problem". 

What I call the First World Star Frontiers Problem is a lack of creativity in the creation of modules. It is really a problem of having too many options or possibilities available in the rules and settings hampering an author's ability to create an engaging scenario. Virtually all of the modules lay out a scenario, then strip the players of some or all of their weapons and kit. That is a systemic railroad if I ever saw one. 

Don't do that to your players, do anything else. 

Knight Hawks actually fixes this problem as even lifeboats have guns and ammo, tools are weapons and the ship is a flying storehouse. Giving the characters a massive starship basically means if they lose their gear, they go back to the ship and gun the f--- up, and come back with a vengeance. This is a better playing experience than losing it all and coming back from nothing. Half of the game is shopping for kit or designing spaceships. Why bother striping gear for every pre-packaged adventure? 

In conclusion, Star Frontiers Knight Hawks is an adequate expansion that adds a new dimension to the already good Star Frontiers RPG. The ship-to-ship battles are engaging and challenging, requiring players to think strategically and use their resources wisely. While the system may be overwhelming at first, the rewards are well worth the effort. If you're a fan of science fiction and role-playing games both halves of this system are for you. 

You can pick up a copy on DriveThruRPG either in PDF or Print. Either is very nice and the two boxed sets are combined together, so it's just one purchase. Personally, I would buy the combo PDF and Print set so you can print off as many of the map pieces and counters as you like. Star Frontiers has really nice counters and starship deckplans. 

Artwork Update - POP-001

Over on Ko-Fi, I am working on POP-001. This takes place in a lost temple. The artwork for that appeared here several years ago. I didn't mean the maps to be a module, but when I discovered that it survived the fire, I decided to go for it. 

These images are very spare and were not meant to be a dungeon. Through the magic of digital media, I can actually adapt them to what I need them to be. Once complete, you will be able to see the original artwork at the same time as seeing how it was adapted for this title. 

Right now I am working on the main battle map, the cenote chamber. For this map, I need to deviate from the simple one-marker, black-and-white design without moving too far from it. This is for clarity.   

You'll have to check out my Ko-Fi posts for the complete ideation of what is to come from this module. What I'd like to write about is my process. 

A lot of times, people will get cagey about tracing stuff. Well, don't be. 

If you look at the 4 images above, they are digital combinations of 3 images that were traced. Granted, they were traced from my own original work, but this is an old-school version "fix it in post". If you zoom in, you'll notice that the gradient lines of the shoreline are exactly the same because it's a scan. With a lightboard and tracing, it would almost impossible to match the lines over and over again. 

At least for me, because I have a tendency to right to ink, no pencil at all. Usually, to create such things I do pencil on graph paper, then trace right to ink. The image is already set on the underlayer, so why not? 

Interestingly, this type of image can be turned sideways for elevation or twisted by some math to give a 3/4 view or whatever I decide, all on paper before the digital process starts. 

My goal is to generate different layers on paper then scan, then combine so I can have multiple images in a variety of styles. This mixed-style allows me to edit stuff digitally to output documents in 8.5x11", A4, or A5 and 5.5x8.5 booklets.  

As I get closer to completion, you'll see more art from me. However, at the end of the day, you'll want to follow me on Ko-Fi to see more of the behind-the-scenes stuff that didn't make the final cut. 

The Temple of Light - Maps

Update: May 3, 2023. These maps will go into a new product called POP-001, Revenants of the Lost Temple. 

This temple complex is the work of an ancient people. The first map is of a traditional family abode. In the past, the tribe dug horizontal homes, as a means of collecting flint. 

As the people transitioned to a bronze age culture, they began the construction of the Temple of Light. The structure is a gleaming white, the effect was achieved with a decorative coating of quartz and flint. 

The Temple was a beacon of solidarity for the people, but it also proved to be a beacon for raiders. The pirates devastated the village proper, taking valuables and prisoners. The raiders returned seasonally to plunder the people. For a time, the villagers disbursed to escape the onslaught.

One day, several young children entered the Temple and discovered a pair of holes in the central hall leading to a deep natural cavern. When the chief was informed, he ordered a return to the old ways of digging pit homes under the Temple.

In a few months, the tribe had relocated under the Temple. By concealing the upper openings with floor tiles, the villagers were able to exact revenge when the raiders breached the Temple. The surviving pirates completed the turnabout with tales of a diamond-encrusted temple protected by spirits of the earth.

Epilogue:

The children discovered the leader of instability in the rock. Future generations will tell the story of a fortress of diamonds beneath the crystal blue waters of a cenote. The stone age villagers speak in hushed tones about the mighty Sea Mage sinking the fortress in anger for the king's refused tribute payments. Adventurers may find tablets of stone that tell of the powerful shaman who levitated the entirety of the Temple to allow her people time to escape the collapse into the waters below.

This series of maps are based on a mix of real-world places and cultures, Grime's Graves, Ancestral Puebloans and people of Teotihuacan in particular.