rjshae

How tech ate the media and our minds My favorite part: "human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds to eight seconds since 2000, while the goldfish attention span is nine seconds." So, in other words... wait, where'd everybody go?

Perhaps an "iron rations" camping supply option that can be used an unlimited number of times, but the party takes various "Exposure" penalties for resting.

An oldie but goodie: A new CEO was hired to take over a struggling company. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. “Open these if you run into serious trouble,” he said. Well, three months later sales and profits were still way down and the new CEO was catching a lot of heat. He began to panic but then he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, “Blame your predecessor.” The new CEO called a press conference and explained that the previous CEO had left him with a real mess and it was taking a bit longer to clean it up than expected, but everything was on the right track. Satisfied with his comments, the press – and Wall Street – responded positively. Another quarter went by and the company continued to struggle. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, “Reorganize.” So he fired key people, consolidated divisions and cut costs everywhere he could. This he did and Wall Street, and the press, applauded his efforts. Three months passed and the company was still short on sales and profits. The CEO would have to figure out how to get through another tough earnings call. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope. The message said, “Prepare three envelopes.”

Nice! Thank you. I read that the company name was based on Black Isle, Scotland. Perhaps then it could have an old abandoned castle?

The only part of The Expanse I don't like is that the first season was only 10 episodes. More, dang it! More. The Flash... is too whiny.

Seems like a general trend though; it's getting more and more difficult to stay moderate in the polarized U.S. political environment. It's not a very healthy environment for democracy.

Good call. But I wouldn't call D:OS over-the-top but tongue-in-cheek. Yes, it's a bit of both at times. At least to me. Difficult to take it too seriously, at any rate.

The art in PoE seemed fine to me. The look provides a realistic feel that takes the renaissance culture and temperate setting seriously. I think an overly warm palette would have diminished that experience. Please leave the bright colors for the more over-the-top cRPGs like D:OS and Torchlight.

No, I don't think that will happen, and that's why I voted "no" because I expected it probably wouldn't fit (so why bother).

Really? Wouldn't you think the names would depend on the dominant culture in the islands. For example, if this were a French archipelago I would expect l'Île Noire rather than Black Island.

Levitating wizards, grenados, buildable animancer golems, scouting pets, potions of growth, destructable terrain, dream travel, underwater adventures, hireable crafting masters, flying rocks, cipher realm, armor sets, psychic surgery, arcane diseases, singing trees, enchanted pools, sunken city, magic item auction, lore book puzzles, ethercraft ruins, ...

Nay, although I wouldn't mind some form of cultural linkages between separate dungeons.

The naming scheme should naturally fit the remainder of the archapelago, so if Black Island does not, it could be immersion breaking to include it. That's why I voted "no".

When the local Subway was being robbed, they Mustard the entire SPD. Lettuce be glad it left the perpetrator in a Pickle. Afterwards, there was a lot of paperwork to Ketchup.

Doctors find ****roach inside woman's skull Why do all the really gross medical stories seem to come out of India?

Kaeral, a former priestess of Berath that has been forcibly placed in fampyric form by a sociopathic animancer seeking revenge for causing the loss of his research. She is entrapped by a collar that forces her to serve the various humiliating whims of her new master, and prevents her from seeking her own demise. The destruction of Caed Nua has temporarily left her free of the animancers control (for reasons unknown), and now she seeks a noble ending to her miserable life in a place far from her home. Is she romancable? Eh... it might get a bit weird.

Romanceable figurehead on the ship's prow... heh. Watch out for splinters.

Maybe this year's symbol should be a canary... in the arctic.

Grenados!

I certainly don't agree. I like the fact that this setting has distinctive elements, rather than being a cookie-cutter version of every stereotyped fantasy realm out there. Giving the Chanter a special talent like this makes them much more useful than the lame D&D Bard class. Hopefully Obsidian won't water that down too much.

Technically, every power of every class in Eora is fueled by their soul, and if a god sapped the strength of your soul it would be the equivalent to a level drain. It has nothing to do with knowledge. This lore was indeed laid down in the beginning of Pillars of Eternity's original kickstarter campaign. I'm not saying it makes the writing good, or 100% realistic, but it makes sense based on the setting and its lore. I'm not sure I buy that for, say, your skill point allocation or basic combat training. Those shouldn't just vanish unless something more fundamental happened, like your entire form is reconstituted and soul re-attached to the new body. On the other hand, it should give your character a powerful motivation to track down the root cause and get his or her experiences back. Or at least to think that is what they are trying to do. Maybe later on you will meet your true form, and find out you were soul-cloned?