Well, the 3N concept has gotten off to a good start, I think. Currently level 3 and going strong in my Nordic Fur. ;)
Not what I came to talk about, though.
So I was thinking as I was going to get pop about creative urges, and in specific my own. And I think to myself no, it's worse than that. It's not just an urge, it's more like a physical NEED. I MUST create things, be they in writing, drawings, whatever. Sort of the manifestations of the things I read, the games I play, if you will. Thus I create D&D worlds, or Morrowind mods. Thus I draw little buildings in the hopes of getting all of these images out of my mind into the world. And I'm also thinking when will it ever be enough? Never. I'll never be satisfied until I stand in the midst of the physical reality of a world I have created. Writing as a medium doesn't do it justice. The drawings I make don't do my ideas justice. Mods for games do not. Physical models might, but they don't LIVE. But one has to try, nonetheless.
*shrug*
Or close enough. Morrowind variantism. The concept: Take a Nord, who will wear nothing but Nordic eq and attempt to take on the main quests of Morrowind, Bloodmoon, and Tribunal.
Allowed Armor:
Bear (Light)
Wolf (Light)
Snow Bear (Light)
Snow Wolf (Light)
Nordic Fur (Light)
Nordic Ringmail (Medium)
Nordic Iron (Heavy)
Nordic Trollbone (Heavy)
And any artifacts that fall under these, of course.
Ice and Nordic Mail are also "Nordic" armors, but since they're the best of their respective classes, no challenge is gained by wearing them. And we're after the challenge, right?
Weapons are a different story. The goal is to be wielding Nordic, Nordic Silver, or Ice weapons (yes, the latter two are NICE stuff. But I'm not insane, here), but reality suggests that getting one of those off the bat likely isn't going to happen. So we'll say use whatever until one of the Three True Weapons comes along that I can use, then switch.
The ultimate goal is something along the lines of wearing full Snow Bear/Wolf and carrying an Ice weapon. We'll see.
For added variety, a few other obstacles: As little enchanting as possible. IE, no munchkin uberitems. That having been said, there are a FEW things, like an item of restore all stats, that are so supremely needful that they will happen. Also, no training, just 'cause I dislike doing it. Mods will be limited - Besides the three master files, I'll only use my pack guar transport system and maybe a non-munchkin house mod for somewhere to store my stuff. The ultimate goal is probably some secret caves under Thirsk. Also bugfix mods as needed. Otherwise, nada.
That having been said, the Naked Nord Nationalist himself:
Name: Hrolf the Ganger
Nordic Male Custom Class
Sign: The Thief
Favored Attributes: Strength, Agility
Str: 60
Int: 30
Wil: 40
Agi: 40
Spd: 40
End: 50
Per: 30
Lck: 40
Specialization: Combat
Major Skills:
Blunt 45
Light Armor 30
Block 35
Heavy Armor 35
Security 30
Minor Skills:
Medium Armor 25
Armorer 20
Axe 25
Athletics 20
Unarmored 15
Hrolf the Ganger (Hrolf the Walker - appropriate, I think) was the legendary Viking "founder" of Normandy (Normans - Norsemen. Get it?)
The Thief sign gives 10 points of sanctuary. Considering the serious lack of armor this guy is going to be laboring under, he'll need it (Snow animal is 35 AR, Ice is 50, Nordic Mail is 66, and I'm stuck with 35. Ice melee is hard as it is)
The skills are set up for what he'll need. Lots of light armor, blunt as a main skill because I like blunt and there's some good beating sticks, and assorted support skills like armorer and security that you can't live without.
We'll see how well this works.
This is pretty damn funny, if I do say so myself.
Guess I'm not entertaining y'all enough, hrm? Except Whir, but Whir has no life, so he's allowed.
Not that much has been going on, lately. Job hunting sucks a whole lot. It's like "job market? You mean Oregon has a JOB MARKET!? You LIE!"
But the extracurricular activities go strong. Such as, yknow, the Kings of the French, which I have another reign report to write for, having finished my all of 9 year kingship.
Played some more Mechwarrior: Dark Age last night, and sucked the first time, had a close battle the second time, and dominated so hard the third time I cleaned him off the map without losing a unit. That was cool.
Did some reading, too. Finished Shogun and heard about a book by some dude named Giles called Samurai William about the real life story behind Shogun. That goes on my list as soon as the fool at the library checks it back in. Reading another one now called The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, who's actually a guy, contrary to what I thought at first. Parents. Sheesh. Premise is that the Black Death wipes out 90% or so of Europe's population, and everyone else pretty much takes over the world. I don't buy everything that he's saying, but it's pretty good. And apparently most of what he writes is sci fi, and he's got some Mars series I want to check into because it sounds like it's about colonists on Mars, and I like colonist stories. Island in the Sea of Time, Morgan's Run, Farmer in the Sky, that sort of thing. Also needing a break from the heavier portion of the summer reading list. Also need to find an Eric Flint book called 1633 around here somewhere. And Assumption of Risk so I can complete my Battletech main line. Books are cool.
I always told myself I would never put one of those test things up here, but oh well.
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | High |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Moderate |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Moderate |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Moderate |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Moderate |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Moderate |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Moderate |
Well, Bloodmoon is now over. Nice enjoyable Morrowind snack. I think I'm about of energy for Morrowind now, but it's certainly been a good ride.
In other news, I finally got done with my latest Kings of the French reign report. Only took like a week to write - all these little bits of fiction take time. Now I need to play out the next guy. Sometimes this is way too much like work, I swear.
Speaking of work, it's out for job hunting tomorrow. Aeeyah.
Or I am, anyway.
MW:DA night last night. Mostly clear field, 600 point armies with only 3 orders, so I built what felt like an overgunned 300 point army. All Spirit Cats, 3 mechs, 6 shock troopers, and 3 vehicles, and my brand new Merc Balac VTOL I traded Cole for last time, and my ONLY VTOL.
That thing rocks. It got me VC3 twice, as I ran it into the other guy's end zone and just stayed there. It was going to save me from Cole, except time ran out. Ah well.
Anyway, the first game was me dancing around, trying to avoid the other guy's LE Mad Cat Mk II that was ruling my world, while picking off his lesser stuff. I did ok at that, until my effing Firestarter fell through the ice. Whoops. I still won, all three VCs, though I more or less left his ubermech alone.
Second game, there was an ugly 6-mech pileup in the center, with assorted other action, that finally ended with me winning by ONE VC2 point. Whoa.
Third game was me vs Cole. Never seen THAT before, have we? I played it all wrong. Charged his mechs, sacrificed my own mechs, and the Firestarter fell through the ice AGAIN randomly. What was he doing, using his flamers on the ice? Bah. In any case, I was just starting to pull it out, and given five more minutes I would've had two of his mechs down, but we ran out of time and I lost hard.
OTOH, the second Firestarter-through-ice stunt netted me a consolation prize - A Steel Wolves Lamprey VTOL, which is my first transport chopper. My coming in third for the tourney!!! got me something even better - the Republic of the Sphere Balac VTOL. This thing is SWEET. Single shot Anti-Personell all over the place, Reactive Armor, you name it. I love it.
I came in third. I may yet get better at this game.
And now I've got my Kings of the French writeup to do, and I've got my next turn. Marechal's kings have NO life expectancy.
This site rules all. From it I have picked up Ultima IV, F-15 Strike Eagle II, and the original 1985 version of Empire. Having grown up on the latter two, my life is now good and happy.
And Bloodmoon rules.
And I think, being as how this is about my 20th or 25th reading of Shogun, I have in fact sucked the life from it. But not quite. It's kind of like an old friend. You might not have anything to say to each other, but there's still something there anyway.
*shrug*
Yes Whir, here's a blog update.
Let's see... Not much happening, really. Finished my latest Kings of the French turn finally, after decades of vicious slaughter in the east, and will now need to write up a story for it. RBP-10A finished as well, with us winning by a surprise UN victory. Just finished my Sirian's Sandbox turn. *shrug*
Also, I played some Bloodmoon. I like it. There's a lot of snow, a lot of Nords, dead and otherwise, a lot of wildlife, most of it now dead, and a lot of nifty quests and items and stuff. About everything one would expect. Good stuff.
On the real life front, well, I need a job. I really, really need a job. I missed the last two offers I had because I was so busy with school I couldn't take the time to persue them. I can but hope that pays off when grades roll around. It was a sucky term. In either case, it's time to start putting together a list of people, and going and talking to the temp agency people again, see what I can find.
In any event, it looks like, job or no, it's going to be a creative summer. I'm pounding out docs for AFKMud by the ton, and I'm starting to get a lot of ideas for Tharavel. Add that to what I've been writing for my Civ games and for KoF, and that's a lot of writing. Get even better when Epic 29 rolls around.
Oh, and then there's the reading list. It's summer, I could relax, but no. Currently, my reading list (for fun, mind you), is:
James Clavell - Shogun
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Norman Davies - The Isles - A History
Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Somebody - The Parthians
And if I get around to it, there's always Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur to play around with. And whatever fiction I end up reading, of course.
So here I am, it's last night about 2am, I'm about to go to bed because I have a test at 9:30 the next morning, and I suddenly realize "Oh yeah. Essay due tomorrow. Crap." *mad scribbling*
Not at all confident about how I did on my last finals, but whatever. I'm done now. All I care about.
And, having taken all these finals, all I got was this sweet t-shirt:
On the front, it's got a picture of my ancient history prof, and the words "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutamus!" (Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you! for the Latin-illiterate). On the back it's got a historical figure name (Gaius Marius for me, who else?) and a list of classes I've taken from him (both Greece classes, Ancient Near East, and Roman Republic).
So, yknow.
Blue book - $0.40
T-shirt - $15
Walking down the street chortling at the aptness of the Latin on the t-shirt given the results of the last test - Priceless
But it's all over now. And better yet, I ordered Bloodmoon a while back, expecting it to be here next week, and I walked home and it was on the table. Perfect. Much Morrowind goodness shall ensue.
Change is about as alien to me as fun.
---Marechal
Not for the faint of heart, but I found the first part of this to be cool, in a gruesome sort of way. Makes you realize how enormously uncool it was to be an Aztec.
For that matter, I'll just go ahead and plug the whole Bronze Age New World timeline while I'm here. Very nicely done alternate history.
So, hrm. What else have I been doing lately.
Well, there's always Civ 3 Succession Games:
And then there's the Medieval: Total War SG:
And then there's all the school. Stalin final tonight, Anth and Greece tomorrow morning. And then it's all over for the entire summer.
I even moved home, for that matter. Home again, home again, jiggity jig, and all that.
This will likely make no sense to you if you don't play MUDs, but oh well.
With blame...er...credit to Samson and myself. When bored imms attack.
Welcome to LifeMUD. Please choose a race.
1) Human
Please choose a class.
1) Worker Drone
Please wait while statistics and a name are generated for you.
The immortals have assigned you the name 'Melvin' and you cannot change it. Enjoy your stay on LifeMUD!
You are in a sterile-looking hospital room.
Your mother is here. A nurse is here.
You are hungry. You are thirsty.
You wield a scalpel.
Your pierce OBLITERATES your mother!
Your mother is dead! RIP.
A nurse's backhand CRUSHES you!
The world fades to black...
> chat hey! All the mobs in the start area are too hard! Your mud sucks!
Unknown command: chat
You are DEAD! Your character has been deleted. Have a nice day.
Welcome to LifeMUD. Please choose a race...
So apparently my mad writing skillz are so mad, my papers are now in general demand or something. Guy came up after class, asked for a copy. That's cool. Never had that happen before. Not to mention the prof wants to give the poli sci people a copy. That's likewise cool.
What's not cool is the weather. It's currently 95 degreees at 6:30 pm. And I had to walk around and sit in class all day in it. Suckful.
However. BK apparently is doing cherry Icees now. Almost anything is worth a cherry Icee.
Well, I lived through the week. I turned in a pair of papers that were at best mediocre, and at worst total drivel, metaphoricly broke my back doing reading, and took an essay test on 3 hours of sleep, but I survived.
But there's good news in here, too. The OTHER paper I turned in, and a previous paper I turned in came back today. An A and an A-. I even have a note on the Magruder textbook paper saying that I should submit it to the current Political Science faculty. Whoa.
