I shall also direct your attention to the post below this one, just so nobody misses it.
You may remember the Nordic Nationalist character concept from long ago. Hrolf has actually been played some, not that I ever talked about it. In fact, he even made it all the way to level 7, when last we checked in on June 30 of last year. So it's been a while.
But I kept a journal, which I will now relate to you, because it amuses me.
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Hrolf the Ganger, Nordic Nationalist
Woke up on the boat, made fun of the chargen sequence a lot (hey, I've done it 20 times before, I'm allowed), then tried to fall off into the ocean but couldn't. Drat. Looted all the stuff in the Census Office, gave Fargoth the ring back, did Hrisskar's quest without giving Hrisskar the cash back, went and found Tarhiel and looted his stuff, and did the Proccy quest. And sold a bunch of stuff to Arielle. All the usual stuff.
(What, you were expecting roleplaying? Not quite. We 'ere've been through the game like 5 times. Did the roleplaying. This 'ere's pure test of skills)
I also did some pearl diving. Now, the thing to realize here is that pearl diving at level 1 for anybody but Argonians is about the hardest thing in the world, simply because grottos can be very very deep, and you can't hold your breath very long. Nevertheless, it was worth 5 pearls and a half suit of Nordic Fur. We're in business.
And while doing the pearl diving, I decided to randomly explore a bit. I usually don't, but did this time anyway. Hit the Thelas Ancestral Tomb. Now, most people would, upon realizing they had 10 hp left, were wearing crap armor, and were slightly undergunned compared to ancestral ghosts, run like mad back to town. But Hrolf here is the Nord Nationalist! He must raid this tomb! So he walks in and gets ambushed by a pair of ancestral ghosts. Which he beats off, sort of.
There's an old joke from Dragon Magazine I once had, where a gamer is holding the character sheet of his dead character, and he says "Let me get this straight. My character went off alone, with 1 hit point, through a skeleton filled tomb to open the coffin of the Archmage Lich-King of Doom?" Well, I had TWO hit points. I was invincible! Ambush another ghost, backstab it to death with one blow of the iron shardaxe. Ambush a skeleton archer, knock it down, kill it without taking a hit. Deciding that even Nords need naps, I sack out for a bit, only to wake up back at 10 hp with the first of the Dark Brotherhood assassins in front of me. But no worries!
A 4,138 gold piece-richer Hrolf the Ganger left Sedya Neen bound for Ebonheart a bit later, this time with a Nordic ringmail curiass and a few armorer's hammers.
Ebonheart, you ask? Yes. Need to go talk to Matius about getting the Dark Brotherhood off my case. They have silver daggers NOW, but when they show up with jinkblades, it's going to get ugly.
On a whim, I randomly stop by Addamasartus. I emerge a little while later with a couple of skooma, ten moon sugars or so, and the bonanza - five scrolls of Ondolusi's Unhinging. Nords in the drug trade? Why not. Also, the Iron Shardaxe from the tree stump by the lighthouse is the God of level 1 weapons, hands down.
Also, Khajit rule. "What Khajit do for you?"
After a rather rainy but boring trip to Ebonheart, I run over and talk to Matius. No intention of doing Tribunal NOW, but at least I've talked to the guy. And then the little imps in my mind say to me "self, you can get the Lord's Mail! You can be the only level 1 ever to get the Lord's Mail!" And I listened. The trio of diseased rats that almost slaughtered me at the beginning almost had me convinced, but no, I could do this. A couple of spectacular beatdowns convinced me that no, I couldn't do this.
A much humbler Hrolf then made his way to Vivec. Shopping day had arrived.
Sort of, anyway. Hlaalu had jack. Redoran had a bit of Nordic fur. Jeanne over in the Foreign Quarter had a trollbone shield, though. Ooo. Everyone else was pretty low in stock on Nordic stuff. On the other hand, the Telvanni enchanter had...equalizers. Soon after, I was the first level 1 Nord in all history to have acquired the Lord's Mail and shoved it in his backpack, and also to have explored the random hideout in Ebonheart's underground caves I never knew was there.
Then I went to Suran in the hopes of getting some actual Nordic equipment. Which I didn't actually do, of course. However, I've decided that I rather like Suran. It's a flyspeck little village, of course, and nothing much happens there, but it's a NICE flyspeck little village.
And of course, just for thinking that, I go download Your Suran Residence and set it up the way I want it before going back to playing. Houses are cool. Even for non-RP characters.
Wandering around the Ascadian Isles somewhere, I hit level 2. Whee.
To cut a long story short, I wandered the Ascadian Isles for a while, stopped by Pelagiad to hit the stores, and hit some random dungeons on the way to Balmora.
The main excitement of Balmora? Meldor has a trollbone helmet. But nobody's got Nordic weapons I can use. Argh. Well, we're working on that. Stopped by Caius' and picked up the first Blades quest, while I was there. Then off to Caldera.
In Caldera, it became apparent that Hodlismod has a Nordic battleaxe. Worse than my Shardaxe, but da rules is da rules... Then off to Ald-ruhn. I shall find the location of all bits of Nordic eq yet.
Ald-ruhn, of course, had jack. Buckmoth had jack. The random Daedric ruin... had a lot of buff people who in the end did not kill me and gave me level 3. Thus proving that with the right preperations, you can take on anybody, anywhere, pretty much.
Mar Gaan is a depressing little pit. A pit like Suran's a pit, but Suran has the advantage of looking nice. Mar Gaan looks like the literal ass end of the world. Plus it hasn't got any Nordic stuff, so on we go.
Thirty or so cliff racers and twenty odd nix hounds later, Ald Velothi is browsed, Gnisis is wandered, and we complete our walking tour of the western island by taking the boat from Khuul over to Solthsheim. Why? Nordic silver weapons.
So the first thing I draw is some Nordic mail boots off a Fryse Hag. The sad thing here is that those boots single-handedly have better AR than my entire getup right now. And I can't wear them. Aeeyah.
Salvation is the bottom of Lake Fjalding. A Nordic Silver War Axe. One handed, so works with my trollbone shield. 1-35, which is better than my 1-30 two-handed Nordic battleaxe. And, uh, I can hit damaged-only-by-magic stuff now. No more running from scamps!
Better yet is the custom armor dude at Thirsk. A mismatched suit of bear/wolf armor, which blows my Nordic fur away. And he had a Nordic silver battleaxe and a Nordic silver mace. I'm in the weaponry now, baby.
Somewhere in all of the carnage and slaughter of assorted wildlife, I hit level 6. Still totally unable to find any snow bears, but level 6 nonetheless.
Then I found the snow bears. And it turns out I need 22 snow bear pelts for a full suit of snow bear armor. 2...4...6...8...need more snow bears. But I found the pirate captain with the key for the 5,000 gold treasure chest. Well. 5,000 gold and a bunch of gems, but who's counting? I was suddenly a very rich Nord. Also a level 7 rich Nord, after assorted wildlife slaughtering.
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Fast forward to last night. Prompted by Marechal's helplessness in the face of daedra, I decided to fire up Hrolf and see how he was doing. And, as it turns out, he did fine, although the start was a little rocky - the smugglers in the cave near Frostmoth are not friendly people, and neither are their jinkweapons, so Hrolf was forced to run away. This did not please Hrolf, who proceeded to wander up north, thrash some wildlife, complete the airship quest, wander back down, loot some barrows, and thrash Ibar-dad's Daedroth, Golden Saint, and pair of Dremora Lords for a whole bunch of Daedric equipment and an artifact shield that went straight on the shelves in the house in Suran.
That having been done, Hrolf wandered down past Vivec, pausing to help an old man and a guar cross the street, then wandered into Ald Sotha and killed everything that was moving in there, emerging with 6 or so Sanguine items. Not yet done with Daedric shrines, he wandered over to Bal Fell and killed everything in there, then wandered over to dwarven Mzahnch and cleared that out too. Then he wandered back up to Solthsheim and thrashed those smugglers.
During this whole time he jumped all the way to level 13. As it happens, when you have as main skills lots of armor and weapon skills, you tend to get in fights and gain lots of levels. And this is what happens. Kill another cliff racer, gain another level. Kill a plague wolf, gain a level. Because we're Nordic Nationalists. This is what we do. Us and our snow bear armor and our large axe.
Just because we're all spamming the hell out of my tagboard with Morrowind stuff, we'll just pause to recognize a few of Ten Paws' better moments in pictures.
Cliff Racers? What Cliff Racers?
(This is why you will never see commercial jet services over the Red Mountain region.)
(Yes, they hovered in the air, dead, like that. It was neat.)
Netch. It's What's For MKFA's Dinner.
(If you've done the quest, you understand. If you haven't, just accept that it was odd.)
(Yes, then I reloaded and unbroke the game.)
The Almalexia Weight Loss Program.
(And some other assorted stuff, too. What Lord's Mail?)
(It really is, too.)
(We were, we were.)
(It's so hard to find good help these days.)
(I didn't mean to! But hey...nice spear you have here...)
And for some way olde tyme Valerius randomness:
(Squeek!)
And some editor randomness:
Ye Olde Revamped Hlaalu Stronghold
(And it was a nifty mod, too.)
(And there were a few, let's say.)
And for even more olde tyme Valerius randomness:
(Because script bugs are fun.)
(But mooooooooom...)
(Not your average trout.)
The Invisible Building of Doom
(Mod bugs are fun, too.)
Oh My God, You Killed Thelonias! You Bastard!
(But he was wearing full daedric! And yes, that's Anya. Who's not mine. But that's another story.)
Just because Whir did it too:
I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Ranger Bard
Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.
Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.
Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.
Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.
Deity:
Mielikki is the Neutral Good goddess of the forest and autumn. She is also known as the Lady of the Forest, and is the Patron of Rangers. Her followers are devoted to nature, and believe in the positive and outreaching elements of it. They use light armor, and a variety of weapons suitable for hunting, which they are quite skilled at. Mielikki's symbol is a unicorn head.
Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)
To quote Whir from a while back, "Brandon got Vampire, why can't I?"
Considering the subject matter of most of the day, the title is perhaps a bit odd, but whatever. It's been a pretty good day.
For one, Regina was kind enough to hook me up with Pratchett/Gaiman's Good Omens, which I hear is a pretty awesome book, and we're all about awesome books in these here parts.
For another, today's mail included an envelope with a thin cardboard sleeve inside, and inside of that was the Discotheque single. And while there's a slightly remixed version of that song on there, we're more concerned with the b-side, Holy Joe. This song is cool. Cooler than, say, 90% of the latest album. It rocks a great deal. Pop kind of rules like that.
On a completely different note, I finally put a word to the feeling I get after seeing a particularly good movie or reading a particularly good book, and that word is catharsis. A cleansing of emotions brought about by intense feelings. Not sure why I've never made that particular connection before, but there it is. And for some reason I feel better about being able to describe that. In any case, it's fairly rare that a game causes said cathartic state. Off the top of my head, Serpent Isle and KOTOR are the only games to suck me in so completely as to do that. Maybe some others, but in any case it's fairly rare. The point is, really, that Pacific Assault managed to do it. Which isn't to say that I wasn't intensely frustrated with it at times - there are a couple of insane MG nests to clear, and the plane level flat out sucks, but otherwise I was completely taken in by the plot and the action. Pretty damn good game.
On a sort of related note, I read a book today, and it's called Brave Men, Gentle Heroes: American Fathers and Sons in World War II and Vietnam. And this is quite the good book. As an author making a point and drawing conclusions about the differences between the two wars or making any conclusions or points at all book, not so good, but contrary to what they train you to do in history classes, I think this is wise. It is not a subject that lends itself to such things, and it is better not to try. On the other hand, as a book with a bunch of guys telling stories about their experiences, it's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
And in the end, there was the Word, and the Word was "Gronk."
So, in a strange twist of fate, I find myself reading a number of books on World War II, playing a WWII FPS, and playing a Civ 3 succession game of the WWII in the Pacific scenario all at the same time. Go figure. In any case, I just talked about MoH:PA, and you can read the Civ game for yourselves, so I'll talk about books.
I don't remember offhand the history of the Pacific war I read. It was, well, the standard US vs Japan history. And, while this is all interesting, and I needed a refresher on the course of the war, what interests me is not American-centric history from the American POV, but in what the Japanese were doing, say. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is largely unavailable or very hard to find.
On the other hand, there are a few things. Somebody seems to have checked them out before I got there, mostly, but there are one or two. A guy named Hiroo Onoda, for example, wrote a book called No Surrender: My Thirty Year War, and it's fascinating. The short version is that Onoda was a guerilla warfare specialist assigned to the garrison of the island of Lubang in the Philippines, and after the US captured the island, he headed off into the jungle with a few guys. By the time 1954 rolled around, they were down to two, and the two remaining guys stuck around until 1972, when the last one besides Onoda was killed. Onoda himself came out in 1974, believing until the last that the war was still going on, and constructing his own reality in his mind to make sense of it. And as it turns out, there was quite a lot of this going on, though 1974 is sort of extreme.
One also notes the fates of various large groups of Japanese troops after the war ended - some settled in the formerly occupied lands, and in China some fought on one side or another of the civil war there. Some might have fought in places like Vietnam, too. Interesting stuff. There's gotta be a book in there somewhere.
On another, more U2 related note, I now possess the Zoo TV Sydney show and the Passengers: Original Soundtracks 1 album. Zoo TV, being the Achtung Baby tour, pretty much has to rock, and the criteria for being played at the Sydney show was apparently "Is this song on either Achtung Baby or Zooropa, and is this song awesome? Well ok then." So let's just say that the only downside to the whole thing is that it's on VHS.
Passengers, on the other hand...well, it's a trippy album. For one, you have the single, Miss Sarajevo, which sounds totally unlike the rest of the album, and for two, you have Your Blue Room, which tangentally sounds like stuff on the album. Then on a less famous note you have Elvis Ate America, which sounds like nothing else, has words, and is very very funny. Most of the rest of the album has either few words, no words, or the words are in Japanese, and the music sounds roughly like what Radiohead was destined to sound like 5 years later, except U2 does this better than Radiohead does this. So I like the stuff with words a lot, and the rest just makes great background music, which since it was supposed to be soundtracks for fake movies, makes a lot of sense, I guess.
And the final word was "Gronk."
First, I would like to take this opportunity to salute Google. Thank you, Google, for proving that you can take a featureless thing that works well, add a bunch of needless bells and whistles to it, and make it suck. Thank you for proving to me that you are not, in fact, God.
Because really, Google Groups Beta sucks the good suck. Really, really sucks the goodest suck there is available to suck.
On the other hand, there is Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, which I recieved for my birthday, amongst a whole host of completely awesome gifts including more GGK books, a hardcover BMR, and a Tom Friedman book which promises to be interesting.
But anyway. This game is cool. It almost destroys my computer, but it is cool. As the guys at Penny Arcade once said, it evokes it's cinematic heritage with precision. Meaning that, with this much linearness going on and with as much plot as it has for being a shooter, it's sort of like playing Thin Red Line the game, or something. For sheer running-through-the-jungle-war-is-hell chaos, this is like no other game I've seen. There's shooting and shouting and an AI so good I forget they're computers most of the time. It's seriously amazing. It even tracks morale for folks, and if the Japanese morale gets low enough, they do stuff like banzai charge, screaming and all. And that's very cool.
Although the level I am currently on where half the Japanese air force attacks me is not so cool, but in general small forest animals are in approval.
On another note, I have acquired the Even Better Than the Real Thing remixes CD. This is good, insofar as the Perfecto Mix is awesome, the V16 Exit Wound and Apollo 440 vs U2 mixes are pretty cool, and the other two are shruggable. But we're a fan of remixes, especially of Achtung Baby stuff, so this is all good.
Also, BF42 needs more Pacific maps.
Apparently somewhere in here I gained a year. Maybe I threw a party of sorts, too. And maybe we played some D&D. Maybe it was even the debut of Tharavel.
So, apparently people about half understood what I was trying for in the world, which considering the monumental task, works out ok I guess. So we end up with Cole's dwarf ranger, Brian's dwarf barbarian, and Jason's elf druid and elf wizard, who turns out to be important since he's the son of a local noble in the elf duchy of Vatan, and that's where the game is.
The whole thing is, the wizard just got called home from studying abroad because he's needed at home due to the giant war going on. So play starts about the time they land in a port on the northern edge of the duchy. Where the elves talk to the nobles about some transport, and the dwarves...
Well, the dwarves went to go steal a couple donkeys. So these dwarves go wandering around to various farms, wherein they accost the farmers for any donkeys they may have, and I (in my best hick accent) tell them yea or nay on donkey prospects. Well, eventually, they find a donkey owned by some farmer, whereupon Brian's like "I sneak up behind the farmer and cleave him with my axe." You're chaotic neutral? Well, ok, I guess. Farmer drops, they jack the donkey. "Oh, he's got chickens, too? Well, we snag those. Let's go to the next farm." One dead farmer and wife later, they're up two donkeys, ten chickens, a goat, a wagon, and 20 silver or so. The guards score a whole 1 on the check to be suspicious, and Jason's character, well, he's got an 8 wisdom. So Grand Theft Donkey pretty much works out.
But, as they trek overland to the warfront, I'm nice enough to attack them with bandits, who succeed in shooting down Cole's dwarf, spooking the donkeys into running away, knocking out the druid, and almost killing the other two before the mage saves the day with a pair of sleep spells. So the now donkeyless party rests, heals, and makes it to the battlefront, where they are then sent off to the mage's hometown to run the place.
This'll be fun. But Grand Theft Donkey. Aeeyah.
Just because every so often we need to have flashbacks to the days of yore O these many months ago when I complained about lack of sleep...
Let's all be aware that the whole 10pm-1am 7am-10am sleep pattern thing just doesn't work out well for the participants. Nor does the 11pm-2am one. Probably looking at another 7-10, too, which is going to quite frankly suck the good suck in sucktastic ways of suckfulness.
And for some reason I keep listening to Until the End of the World and the Byrds' version of Mr. Tambourine Man over and over and over. And the combo of the two is a bit strange, you might say.
And most of you know that I beat KOTOR, and that I did so in a particularly humiliating way for the Sith which involved Force Waving horde after horde of guys, followed by spamming Darth Malak with Force Waves until he died. He didn't get a shot off. It was sad.
I think I did other things, too, but I don't remember what they are. Maybe I played some Civ or something. Maybe read some books. I don't know.
Maybe my throat hurts, too, for some reason, and maybe that's pissing me off. And maybe I'm finally tired enough to go back to sleep, so maybe I'll do that.
Just because I finally got done printing it out and cutting it and putting it together, I shall now offer up an image of the new and revised Tharavel map, poster-sized, 1" = 60 mile scale. It is, most people will agree, a distinct improvement upon the old one.
Yes, those two things and the penguin are the only things hanging on my walls. One of these days I also want to put up a poster-sized version of Justinian and Co.
Strange taste in decoration? Maybe. Maybe. But we history types tend towards eccintricity. Just ask Marechal.
I'm sitting here listening to some tapes I taped off the oldies radio like, oh, back in 1992 or so. I decided to finally discover what the names to all these songs are, because most of them having been bugging me for like 10 years now.
As it turns out, I had awful taste when I was 12. I mean, the Limbo Rock. Come on, self. Along with a couple of songs I hated, even back then, which is why they're on both tapes. Then there's a couple times when I forgot I was recording, went off and did something else, and caught entire commercial breaks from 1992.
We were not brilliant when we were young.
OTOH, there's enough Steppenwolf, Rolling Stones, and the like in there so that I can't totally ostracize my younger self. Too, there is a particular song request call I managed to catch on tape which is just...something. The transcript follows.
[Background: Sometime in the early 90s, the Tillamook diary ran a commercial saying that the cows were depressed and needed our help, and so people should call the cows and help them out. Most of us didn't take it seriously.]
DJ: "Oldies 97.1."
Jerry: "This is Jerry. I need your help. I have visitors from Wisconsin, and I wanted to know if you could play Bob's special request to all of us to call the cows. The Tillamook cows are depressed!"
DJ: "You're calling for me to play a COMMERCIAL!?"
Jerry: "A special commercial! Only because they're from Wisconsin! And they have to call the cows to let 'em know that even Wisconsinites like Tillamook cows."
DJ: "I can't take a request for a commercial!"
Jerry: "But I'm a snob! And I drive a Beamer, too!"
DJ: *giggle*
Jerry: "Those two things alone should say that you should play this for my friends from Wisconsin."
DJ: "I'll tell you what. If you hang on, I'll get you the phone number, ok?"
Jerry: "Oh, it's 224-1681."
DJ: "Oh, you've got it."
Jerry: "I have it memorized. I tell everyone to call Bob."
DJ: "And why...why don't you just have them call then?"
Jerry: "I did. We've left little messages. But I want them to hear the commercial."
DJ: "Well thanks for calling, Jerry. Listen, I'll just play a song for the cows, how's that?"
Jerry: *laughing* "Just what I wanted to hear."
*Grazing In the Grass plays*
