Walsingham

Can anyone suggest any stats for the anaurocj? I'm thinking Weapon Skill 40, strength 6, toughness 6, wounds 60. Keep in mind that - off the top of my head - on average the players will be causing an expected 1 wound a turn with hand weapons. While the beast will be causing an expected 5 or 6. And the players have 16 between them. [damage is strength, minus target toughness and armour, plus d6; taken off wounds] If I put initiative at 35, or can plausibly explain why it's that low (lights, fire, drugs or something) then that will at least give the players a means of getting their actions in first, and out 'dancing' it. But they are going to have to do something clever to kill it, realistically.

What a terrible book that is. First time I read it I thought so. Then I realised that it's excellent... because it's so bad precisely because the protagonist has no emotions.

I'm at the stage of my friends devoting hours of time to fixing me up with friends of theirs. Trouble is that I basically get along OK by myself with the obvious exception. I pretty much rule my own existence, and the thought of having to make all sorts of compromises terrifies me. I don't think there's any harm in going off dating for a bit, GD. Sounds like it's a natural point for a break. Just don't quit entirely because of a few loons. Which is kinda the advice I should probably apply myself.

Yes, because when I think of good food and excellent weather I automatically think of Scotland. I don't know what you've done to Pidesco, but it must be something bloody terrible to make him try and trick you into moving to Scotland. As much as I hate to say it, as an IT bod the corridor between Reading and Guildford could be your best bet. You can commute to probably 60% of the high payscale IT jobs from there. On the other hand it's death by suburbia. Still, you could always finesse your location later on once you had a good job. My only caveat is that a friend of mine has moved to Reading and so far as I could tell in a weekend it is stuffed to the gunwales with lowlives. First time in many years I've seen drug dealers sitting around openly peddling on doorsteps. In general the South is up its own rear end, and houses are expensive. The weather is typically better. English restaurant food can indeed be bloody awful, but there are exceptions. The biggest thing to keep in mind is ensuring you have a top class local pub. It will be your source of local information, friends, and good beer. Afterthought: you might consider Bristol. It's becoming a new hub for firms.

I get the notion of tunnel fighting, and obviously the dwarf makes sense. But we've already had some good tunnel fighting, and are likely to have more later. I'd rather have this bit above ground. Something to keep in mind is that from the little fluff available the kingdom of Estalia is upposed to be a dusty but generally congenial place. It's not terribly powerful, and isn't on the way anywhere else. So it tends to get overlooked as being too much trouble to conquer. But they're still pretty active, so the corruption is quite mild by comparison. I want this campaign arc to be quite light, with most bad guys being pretty thick monsters. Even the Matxin, who is pretty bloody annoying as an antagonist is actually on the good guys' side. Once/if the players get bedded into their characters THEN I can have them travel North and get more corruption in their faces.

I like the idea of skavens digging their way in. I think such a plot could complicate matters substantially. Thoughts: What happens if you mix warpstone with gunpowder? What if the players try to tunnel in and accidentally tunnnel into the skaven tunnels? How many skevn would be involved and what are they armed with? How many more are out there? Are the skaven running out of a ship in the wharf rather than tunnels? That could be quite cool. Is there some way I can have a Magrittan bull even the odds for our plucky idiots? I mean adventurers?

Right, chaps. As you should have read, the PCs have just been offerred a competing offer by the matriarch of the household of Gorthoba. She is offering them plentyo f gold to be 'captives', rather than set guards over them which she astutely guesses they will only escape from, kill, or both. I want ideas for things for them to do in the city. These can be deliberate missions or complications to the missions. Remember we have Matxin, the patriarch, who is involved in ambitious plans to form a new and effective military and take over the entire peninsula for the aim of reinforcing the beleagured empire farther East, using new gunpowder weapons. We also have a cult of chaos cultists who are exploiting the idle/desperate rich to generally mix everything up and keep the ineffective Prince of the city in power as long as possible. Then you have various Araby slave traders, southern barbarians, Tilean pirates and so on. You also have the background timeline running which is that as soon as the snows properly melt and the tunnels near the dwarfhold drain then a Goblin army is going to pour out. Matxin's forces and alliances are the only credible way this army could possibly be stopped in the field, although the major cities will likely resist it. Missions I have planned so far are 1. Investigation of a warehouse in the artisan docks area which wil turn out to be full of gunpowder and harquebuses. A pretty standard sneak and peek, with options for looting highly useful kit and possible exploding an entire section of the city. In fact how they behave on this will have massive implications for the military balance of power, and if they do too much damage they may be consigning Matxin's plans to the dustbin with potentially horrific results. 2. The eldest daughter of the family is being pursued by a young man. A callow but dashing blade. Their brief will be to keep him away from her, but they will eventually observe him being kidnapped. This is because he turned to a bruja [chaos witch] in the swamps for a love philtre, and the disgusting beesom has fallen in love with him and detailed a nearby coven to seize him and bring him to her, where she will use the philtre ON him instead of FOR him. The plan here is to have the players retracing his footsteps around teh city, getting into all sorts of odd corners before finally establishing his destination in the swamp. Pretty much any shenanigans could occur here. Possible complications I have include an escaped anaurocj. A terrifying beast which would need them to think quite creatively to kill.

Ah, so you believe that the DPRK has submarines which can one-shot corvettes in shallow waters without being detected? The Defense Minister of the South, Kim Tae-young, "ruled out a torpedo attack from North Korea, which would have been spotted by radar." (Washington Post) I don't know what actually happened. It seems likely that there was an old mine from the Korean War which went off (or the ship simply ran aground), and that subsequent investigation has been highly politicized or simply reached an incorrect conclusion. I'm not a naval expert and never have been. But I know enough to know that yes, such an incident can occur. I also know that the blast of a mine in accidental contact is going to be very different from a torpedo. Particularly a mine that is very very old. BUt that's OK. I didn't seriously expect you to gave anything but comradely love for the glorious free state of North Korea. I just wanted you to say so, so I could have a chuckle.

I think the latter part of this statement physically hurt my face as I ran into it. I liked the first part tho.

LOL 'fundament'. I haven't heard anyone use that in years. I do think it's fair to say that there is a long and enduring cultural thread of anti-Britishness running through US politics. I'd say it is a carnival house reflection of the people in true democratic fashion. 1. America rose to it's prosition of pre-eminence by shouldering the UK out of the way 2. The absurd hagiography surrounding the War of Independence demands that the Britsih be seen as fudnamentally vile 3. American popular culture is pants-wetting terrified of anything with pretensions of superiority which can't be bought. It's perfectly expressed in the form of Hannibal Lecter and to a lesser extent Frasier/Sideshow Bob.

I would reread Les Etrangers (I think that's how you spell it). But frankly I do think that if one had absolutely no reaction that would be worth talking to a professional about. Either this individual has sociopathic tendencies, or they are suppressing their emotions to a degree which can only be unhealthy over time. Or, I suppose they may not understand what death actually is. How often has this person dealt with death?

Having finally completed the physical security upgrades to my house I was able to sleep like a kitten for about 12 hours and wake refreshed with (for reasons I may never understand) a sweaty nose.

It's far more complicated sadly... The problem actually stems from the top, the CEO's and investers etc... They want to spend as little as possible, and gain the most reward. Developers are desperate to survive it's how they earn their bread, producers and studio managers will agree to unreasonable demands and then expect the team to deliver, and sometimes through blood, sweat, and tears they do, other times they don't, the result of missing too many milestones can mean that the studio closes. People will work ridiculious hours, risking their homelife, I know one guy who hadn't seen his wife for over a month, and his kids for nearly 2 months, because the job needed doing. This is the reality of the industry. Fair rejoinder. I need to consider.

So you admit that the DPRK was not responsible for the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan? Please tell me that was a conspiracy. Please. I could use a laugh. Krez: I'm not sure how seriously to take your analysis if you're saying India and Brazil aren't on the way to superpower status. At least potentially.

1759. I nomally don't read back beyond 1800, but I thoguht I'd give this a go. Brilliant discussion of why the year 1759 is a fulcrum on which the world turned. Plus the best bit is I have an easy peg to remember when the events decsribed happened. I need these pegs to orient all the other factoids I read. Very well written, and chock full of tasty nuggets, like oreo cookie ice-cream. Hang on, I've not had breakfast...

FFS! It's a Spanish Suitcase scam. When will people stop giving Nigeria totally undue credit?

Write them down, and they get more vivid.

I think the solution is a change of culture. Lazy abusive managers who hide behind procedure need to be openly crticised or at least mocked for being what they are. And yes I know that means a whole lot of seemingly inoffensive people are going to get hoofed, but it can't take forever for change to occur.

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That thing in the sky appears to be a bowling ball with four finger slots. For aliens, perhaps? Or that awesome vulture. "WWWAAWRK! I throw my mediumweight moonball at you, puny mortals!" Actually, I think they're singing about the vulture... EDIT: I kinda like the change at 3:49

Frankly I think there's a tremendous amount of bad management in most industries. Which is why I no longer work for a large firm. I couldn't take any more spoon faced morons frittering away the lives of their employees.

The mismatched pants could be the genius element. Anyone who might look beyond the vader costune and note something actually useful is going to hit the reserve element of the pants.

Apologies for the delay. Yes, that is exactly what happened. With multiple witnesses including the professional croupiers, and several members of my old unit. No funny business. No method on my part, besides the feeling I was being mad to bet singles. But of course, knowing probability I knew that it didn't matter how often I won on singles, the odds at each bet stayed the same. Of course I had to joke that I used up a lot of my food luck reserve for no reason. Then that year I busted my ribs and my family went to hell. But that's just superstitious nonsense.

I think it's interesting how many people I know or correspond with who are clinically depressed. I had a pretty crap week, and I took today off. Just played computer games on my new machine. Ate curry .Ate steak. Just off to eat more curry. I should be fine by tomorrow. Off with friends on a jaunt to Reading of all places.

It shouldn't make any difference, but I can give an example. I was playing a friendly, not for money evening of casino games (on professional equipment), and I played roulette. I played single numbers and I won 7 times, lost once, and won another two times. I don't know the odds of that offhand, but it's bloody 'weird'. However, the odds on each attempt to win were identical.