Transition Complete.

We are now finally out of the old place, and into the new. boxes EVERYWHERE, but it still feels tidier cleaner and more spacious than the old place... Plus the garden is awesome! Internet will be installed in about a week and a half, but for now: Study must be initiated - I have an exam on Monday...

-V

Brain melty.

I googled brain melt for an image... honest.

Packing is ongoing. Revision is crammed in where possible. It is 23:45 - and I have a LOT of ground to cover studying for tomorrows database exam. Thank Jupiter it is at 2:45pm... HOLAP, MOLAP, ROLAP, Aggregation, Relational Databases, Object Databases, Hypermedia, Real Time Databases, OLTP, biker mice from mars, Tom and Jerry, Dragon Orbs with demon spittle on. These are a few of my favourite things.

Huh, whats that? Oh crap! Yeah, Study.

Bai!
-V

Zombie Jesus Day

For some reason that name always makes me giggle. Now that the time of fertility celebrations are here - I cant help but think how much I wanna play wow and chase about little Noblegarden eggs... I must be insane.

May the 1st is Beltaine - I wish I was in a position to attend some of the celebrations that go on around the country at that time... it IS Sunday though - so perhaps a BBQ with some friends is in order... Then exam on the Monday. (Ah crap, I am moving tomorrow afternoon and all day wednesday... that leaves from Thursday to study for my next exam... yey! ...)

Anyhoo! Sooner they are done with the better. Just gonna enjoy the ride.

-V

Procrastination must not be added to!

Study study, pack, clean, study, play/feed/take care of kids, study study clean clean pack pack study study... Aargh! Wanna play my Death Knight :/ cant wait for the holidays...

D&D Campaign: The seal of Akatiel: 17th April

After running this session all I can say is: Epic dragon aerial battle encounters are HARD to choreograph!

Clutched in the massive claws of Chorgallon, the party ascends higher and higher into the sky. From the dragon well below, they see a stream of Huge Black Dragons spewing forth. Each has a cultist of some form riding them - except for 5 that appear riderless. They also see 2 red, 2 blue and 2 green dragons flying in from over the mountain from different directions to join them. Ahead over the horizon they can make out the rapidly closing group of metallic dragons approaching.

Chorgallon places the party members gently onto the backs of the riderless black dragons, where they find a makeshift harness/saddle in place that they can fix themselves to, and a large quiver filled with various colours of Javelins. Red, Blue, White, Green and a single Gold. It is clear what all Javelines represent with the exception of the Gold one, Edgar detects conjuration magic on it, and whilst contemplating Joe says "Hey, big wormy dude! Whats the gold one for!" to which Chorgallon responds: "Its for healing. Hit a target with it and it will restore them to full health. He informs them to be cautious with their selection to use in combat as they can only conjure a specific number of them at a time, and there may be benefits of using certain javelines on certain dragons, or in certain combinations for extra damage.

Edgar starts buffing party members up. Rapidly approaching they can make out 6 Bronze Dragons, and 3 Silver, copper, Brass and Gold Dragons. One Gold Dragon is significantly larger than the others and parts off to the flank from the rest of the force. Chorgallon splits off to intercept: One of one combat will commence.

The party advances towards the enemy, throwing javelines of Fire, Lightening, Cold and Acid at the enemy - starting with a gold dragon, between them and the rest of their force, they manage to kill it, and their combined energy rays and javelines from the metallic dragons forces takes out two of the Black Dragons, who start to desintegrate with the energies hitting them and fall from the sky, to impact with a hefty squelchy thud into the swampland a mile below. The party advances once more, Evictus raising his sword up and decapitating a dragon as his mount bites, claws, and lashes at it with its tail and wings, and the dragon cohorts charge forth into an aerial Melee, tearing a couple of the Bronze Dragons out of the sky. One by one dragons are falling from the sky on both sides, as our party guides their dragons around the aerial battlescape. They gang up on anyone loose from the pack tearing them to shreds.

Off to the side the Great Wyrms do battle - behind them, silhouetted against the clouds two ghostly visages can be made out. Behind the black dragon is the 5-headed dragon: Tiamat the chromatic dragon Godess, and behind the gold dragon there is Behamut, the Platinum Dragon god, and father of Tiamat. The Colossal Gold Dragon grips Chorgallon in its claws and rips its wings from its body, discarding them as the great Black Dragon plummets towards the earth. Joe steers his mount into a dive and hurls his Golden Javeline of healing at Chorgallon, healing him as he impacts the ground. He stands up having survived the impact to survey the swamp. In the clouds above, the Metallic Dragons retreat at the site of Chorgallons body plummeting towards the swamp. As the Great Wyrm gold dragon ascends into the cloudline there is a colossal crack of thunder and hissing as the sky lights up with an array of lightening forks, cascading through the cloudline, and a red fiery glow... a moment later the Gold Dragon falls, body broken, scales and wings blasted clean off.
Ceinwen attempts to hit the dragon with a Golden Spear to try to allow for the opportunity for negotiations, but it is already dead, obliterated by whatever force was out of site in the cloudline. She dismounts as she does so, and impacts with the ground hard enough to break her vampiric body into a puff of smoke, and start drifting downwind.

The remaining dragon forces disperse, 3 surviving metallic dragons and 6 surviving Chromatic plus their riding mounts, and the party fly down on their dragons to investigate the swamp where 2 great wyrms and a vampire have hit the dirt. Well, I say they fly down on their dragons: Edgar BECAME a red dragon using a polymorph spell, although he is dwarfed by the dragons he descends alongside.

End of session. 
This campaign will resume after a few sessions of other games have been played, I want some fun gaming not as DM :p. I need a break!

-V

Adventures of moving to the new geekery-pad.

So, last night we planned out the big move. We have moved roughly once every year and a half since 2003 and every time we move, we seem to get less organised and pick up more and more crap. This time around we plan to be organised!

So...
We made a packing and task chart...

Which rooms to start on, what stuff to pack in advance, what tasks need taken care off (e.g cancelling services, changing billing addresses, etc.), the list is crazy and seemingly endless - but feels much more organised. Damn having these exams and some remaining admin to take care of before the move is officially official (i.e we actually get moving and don't just lose some of the deposit by pulling out.) I want to start packing and moving stuff in now!

Anyway, one of the things I am looking forward to the most is actually having a gaming area at last! At the moment if I want to play Warhammer I have to set up a single 2'x6' board on the living room floor or go to a friends house to play there. When running D&D and other P&P RPG's (Captain Acronym today!) we basically gather a couple of rickety old chairs around a big cushion and couch, and place a 2'x2' gaming board on the floor with some miniatures and a stack of dice on.
In the new place - the living room is fairly big, and will only have a couch and a couple of bits of furniture, and the kitchen has a 6-seater table. This gives us choice, and space! I cant wait to get the first game under way!

Productivity Downturn

I'm going to be going into a little bit of a hibernation mode for the next month. The last d&d game before the exam period will take place this coming Sunday. I have exams starting in 11 days, and I move house in 12. Its going to be a hella-busy and stressful time period with no internet for a short duration. Ill post whatever comes to my mind when I can, but it wont be the average post a day I have been trying to maintain lately.

Brb
-V

D&D Campaign: The seal of Akatiel: 11th April - Part 1

The party had previously reached a river and initiated combat with a Dragonne. Forest lines the river on both sides up ahead, and a mountain range can be seen in the distance – the Well of Dragons is said to be nestled amongst these mountains.

The party drains the Dragonnes blood into the river, and the Black coach trundles through the polluted river to the other side, and the party follows the river to the North. There is enough space alongside the river for the Black Coach to comfortably fit. After about an hour of travel, the sun is starting to set again – and the treeline to the east is thinning out... The trees seem limp and lifeless, with no leaves with the bark faded out to a pallid grey-green. Several wild animals litter the ground.

The party goes over to investigate. A stream flows down from the mountains and comes to a stop, draining underground near the main river. All the trees within 50ft of this river are dead, and the trail of the river can clearly be seen snaking right over to the nearest mountain and up the mountainside. The scene is very ambivalent. A beautiful darkening sky over the snow-peaked mountain, the forest all around and then the death and decay surrounding the river. Upon investigating the area they identify that the water is fouled, likely caused by Black Dragons - the water is Toxic and Acidic as hinted at by the dead animals and plantlife in the nearby vicinity. Joe pokes a stick in, and it dissolved in a matter of seconds - he holds it up giggling and just manages to avoid a glob of the liquid dripping onto his bare hand from the stick.

The party follow the river towards its source, it leads out of the woodland and up the slopes of the mountain... After about 500M the river disappears into several springs in the hillside. High above in the darkened sky, a couple of circling flying figures can be seen... The Silhouettes clearly identify them as dragons. One of them goes into a dive, appearing to be diving to a point further up the hill... After a few seconds, it billows out its wings and slows its decent and disappears out of your line of sight. To the party it looks like a young black Dragon. Not a great threat to the party on its own.

Casting invisibility on themselves, the party heads up hill

Egan sends his familiar forth to see if it can identify where the dragon went. He assumes there must be an entrance of some sort to access an underground lair. The bird flies up and circles around for a moment before reporting back via its Empathic Link that there is a couple of structures ahead and that there is a huge hole in the ground between them. The party proceed and after about 20 minutes of climbing up the rocky hillside,they reach a small plateau on the hillside. The Plateau is a couple of hundred ft  around and two wooden frames sit in the middle of it about 40’ apart, between them there is a gaping hole in the ground. Suspended from each wooden frame is a hefty Rope ladder. It looks sturdy enough and of a suitable size for a human to use, but is clearly designed for something of greater stature.

Evictus bounds onto the rope, and Ceinwen decides to climb onto him - and together they begin to descend. Joe follows them down the ladder whilst Egan levitates himself down the chasm beside them and Dreinell decides to just jump.

With a loud crunch Dreinell hits the solid rock floor at the bottom of the chasm, some 75 foot down. A moment later there is some shouting in an unrecognised language and then a couple of lines of acid cut the ropes on either side - on the side that has people climbing down, it causes Evictus and Ceinwen to plummet, but Joe is left hanging from the ladder.

Nobody is badly hurt from the falls, and the party examines their surroundings: A large cavern, made of Hewn stone - cut out of the odd combination of Granite and Limestone that this area of the hill comprises of. The chamber extends to the south where another wooden structure can be made out in the gloom, and tunnels extend to the east and the west. To the east there are two Dragonkin, much like those in the White Dragon lair, but this time they appear to have lizard-like skin. 

Egan floats down points his finger and says "Kapow!" and a dark beam bursts from his hands, narrowly missing one of the beasts and disintegrating a football sized hole in the solid rock behind him. Evictus bounds into the closest guy and initiates combat, whilst Ceinwen and Dreinell pick themselves up from the floor and cast at the two targets. Dreinell inflicting wounds and Ceinwen casting Friend to Foe and turning one of the DragonKin on the other. Joe in a feat of Acrobatic Fail attempts to spin round and dangle from his knees, but loses his grip and narrowly manages to catch the rope as he starts to fall, watching in vain as most of the arrows from his quiver clatter harmlessly onto the cavern floor below, along with a handful of poorly stowed daggers.

The DragonKin fight each other and Evictus. Dreinell inflicts further wounds, Ceinwen whelms the standing target, whilst Joe attempts to hook himself in place, succedes and fires a single arrow shot that misses. Evictus hacks away, and Egan casts Haste on the party.

Evictus and the DragonKin that has Friend to Foe cast on it cut down the injured DragonKin and Ceinwen manages to convince the other that they are not enemies. It stops fighting and looks at them confused as Joe makes a long jump from the rope onto the ground, tumbles up behind him and performs two viscious critting sneak attacks that kill him.

The party quickly check the bodies for loot and retrieve a number of items (loot at end), then head to the next chamber downwards. This one is about 100ft deep, and again Dreinell dives down whilst the others start to climb. The glow of fire can be seen at the bottom. 

With a thunk Dreinell lands, and Ceinwen calls down "Hello, we are friends!" which convinces one of the hidden Mindflayers to step out from hiding to speak. 

The party shuffle down and as soon as they are on the ground they all get hit with a Mind Blast from a powerful Illithid Sorceror, knocking Egan unconscious. They also notice the Gold Orb sat on a pedestal in the corner of the cavern. Evictus notices the ground being disturbed by the invisible Sorceror and charges over, but fails to hit it - it then retalliates and manages to land two of its tentacles on him and grapples him to the ground, ready to suck his brains out. Joe comes over and starts poking wildly into the fray, but fails to do any damage. 

Joe himself gets flanked by another mind flayer who fails to hit him, Dreinell inflicts wounds and Ceinwen convinces the Minflayer that is not fighting to reveal himself and dispels the invisibility on the Sorceror. The melee continues, with Evictus breaking free from the MindFlayers grip and giving it a powerful whack from his Sword as Joe proceeds with a hasted backstab flurry (x5) against the sorceror, dropping it in a flurry of damage and constitution draining.

Ceinwen convinces the remaining flayer to stop attacking and sleight of hands the orb off the pedestal as Joe slays the freshly convinced mind flayer in another flurry of sneak attacks.

As Ceinwen lifts the orb up, two large glowing orbs are seen in a cavern to the east, which quickly grow and the form of a Gargantuan Black dragon emerges from the chamber, swooping towards Ceinwen who just picked up the orb. She yells "we are friends" to the Dragon who pauses in confusion. She tries to convince him that the party is more powerful but he assesses the party as no threat, but plays it safe since he believes the bluff and offers an allegiance. On a tenuous acceptance, he grabs the entire party in his claws and scrabbles up the exit tunnels and out into the open air. A number of large - huge Black Dragons start spewing forth from the hole in the ground behind them. In the distance they can see a number of shadowy specs on the horizon, growing larger, and a few of the party members think that they spot another dragon high overhead, with multiple heads - but when they look again, there is nothing to be seen.

>End of session<

Loot:

Amulet of health +2 <+2 con>
Scroll of Phase Door
Ring of climbing
Potion of greater magic weapon +3
Potion of Water Walk
2x Potion of Hide from Undead
2x Potion of cure serious wounds
Masterwork Silver Dagger
Bag of holding I

-V

The exploits of Sgt Robinus, continued!

I had a couple of games of Warhammer 40k last night against a mate playing Imperial Guard. Sgt Robinus once again performed some thrilling heroics that provided some entertainment. In fact, without them both games would have had a VERY different result! Below are two brief battle reports, centered around his actions.

Marine army: 
Chaplain (melta bombs + jump pack + Plasma Pistol)
Assault Squad x10 (2 Plasma Pistols, Power Claw and Combat Shield.)
2 x Tactical Squads with Rhinos, (Power Fist, Combi-Melta, Melta gun and Missile Launcher - both squads combat-squadded for both battles.)
2 x Landspeeder Tornado's - MultiMelta and Heavy Flamer.

Battle 1: <5 objectives>
The imperial guard brought along a pretty decent tank army. 2 chimaeras, a Leman Russ Demolisher and a Leman Russ Executioner (I hate these things!) as well as a Valkyrie filled with Veterans It was very intimidating - especially when considering my lack of heavy weapons.

Sgt Robinus rode around midfield for half the battle guarding an objective, supporting the assault squad and the other Rhino looking for targets.  In the latter half of the game, him and his squad trundled up nose to nose against the executioner on the right flank, with the Valkyrie (Immobilised) and its vets behind it. The combi-Melta wrecked the Executioner, and everyone mounted back up and trundled over to the vets, who Demo packed their ride, and charged the squad once they dismounted. The squad held out and the next round a chaplain who's assault squad had been wiped out jumped on in and between them they took down the remaining vets. 2:0 win for the marines due to 2 rounds of rediculously lucky shooting from the the 2 missile launchers up the back.

Battle 2: <Objectives, 3 markers.>
The imperial guard brought an infantry army for this one - 80+ troops, 8 scoring units - considering I had a footslogging assault squad - this was more intimidating than the last (At least I could block the executioners line of site in the first battle - cant block the lines of site from all 80 guardsmen, or their 6 missile launchers, 3 Lascannons, hotshotting Storm Troopers (Ap3 lasguns), and dozen or so Melta guns/plasma guns on vets!) The assault squad made some major judgment BooBoo's that resulted in them being mowed down in the open in front of 90% of the guards line. As for Sgt Robinus: His squad and the other squad went up the right flank - the other squad being dismounted, slogging up the middle and eventually being slain to plasma fire.

Robinus and his squad trundled up through the woodlands, and emptied out in front of a heavy weapons team and guardsman squad, and opened up with Melta guns and rapid fire bolters forcing the surviving heavy weapon guy to flee. They took the shots from the guardsman squad losing the Melta gunner, whilst the rhino got stripped of weapons beside them. The rhino moved over whilst Sgt Robinus and co. moved over to the guardsmen and assaulted. The charge was a failure, the combat was tied - but this meant that the squad was safe from guard shooting next round. In the Imperial Guard round the guardsmen lost, and were cut down in their retreat. The Rhino tank shocked a heavy weapon squad behind the guardsmen squad that had just been killed forcing them to flee, and they continued off of the board. Sgt Robinus and his squad continued over to a vet squad, charging and killing all but 2, the storm troopers joined in in the guard round and the battle there raged for another two rounds before Robinus was cut down by the remaining Colonel and the remaining Storm Trooper leaders power sword. (Robinus+co tally: 2 heavy weapons squads, 2 guardsman squads!) I am proud of this little marine... anything less from them and the battle would have been a tie, or lost. As it was, it ended with a score of 2:1 to the Marines.

It was an interesting evening - I may have stumbled onto a 1k point army I actually like with Marines! I dont think they would fair well against Tyranids however! They have always been my Achilles heel...

-V

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - articles

Christian Heilmann (@codepo8 on twitter) who works at Mozilla here in the UK, and who is a huge advocate of HTML5 in web development linked the updated Elder Scrolls website as being written in HTML 5, so I went for a browse. I have been a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls series ever since I stumbled across Morrowind back in  2002, so I took a long look at the eyecandy provided on this site - and actually found a number of very interesting articles - articles that are very interesting if you are interested in game development.

Having a browse on the TES site, the following articles relating to the development of TES IV, Oblivion caught my eye:

Game Audio. Focusing on audio immersion and voice acting.
Graphics Design in-game. Deceptively titled, this article goes into details of how they generate in-game terrain, scenery and sprites.

Im looking forward to Skyrim :) - though i have a backlog of games to work on. Dragon Age 2 and The Witcher 2 being the most prevalent. But what can I say. Vikings v Dragons sounds like its gonna be AwesomeSauce!

-V