So when did FRPG Dwarves all become Scots?

Obviously, not all of them are, but enough that it is starting to really annoy me. I am not an anti-Dwarf racist or anything, but when I was looking for Scottish Highlander miniatures on EBay today I found these guys-

Apparently they are for a game called Dwarf Wars, and only one of the factions is Highlander Dwarves, but it got me to thinking. Dwarves aren't part of Scottish Highland folklore, not D&D type Dwarves anyway. D&D type Dwarves come straight from Norse and other Germanic sources via Tolkien's works, and I rather prefer them to stay more Nordic; or at least be the short bearded guy in the party that is otherwise indistinguishable from the rest of the party in dress and weapons, maybe preferring the axe, or the crossbow.

Now I understand there is a miniature battle game put out by Fantasy Flight Games, their stuff is usually top notch, right? This one, called Battlelore, is a fantasy version of the Hundred Years War, where you get to hire Dwarf and Goblin mercenaries, or so the box says, I haven't played it.

Their Scottish Wars Expansion pretty much makes the case that all the Scots are Dwarves.

So does the Dwarven Battalion Expansion.

I think I remember reading something in a TSR novel set in the Forgotten Realms back in the early 1990s with some Scottish Dwarves too, but I can't remember which one, if it ever really happened at all.

Then I remembered Games Workshop and their Warhammer Fantasy RPG and the ginger, Mohawk sporting Dwarves there, so I did an image search and found this-

A definite Scottish look to him. I might not mind this; although I have a buddy that's of Irish extraction an only 5'8" and he has to deal with Leprechaun jokes constantly from another friend of ours who is lucky she's a woman, because he's kind of a bad-ass; but I might not mind Scottish Highlanders being associated with Dwarves if I wasn't 6'6" tall. I know it's stupid of me to take this as a personal affront, but I kind of do anyway. Even my little brother is 6'3". My sister is 5'9".

I Don't Know if it's the Bad Back or Father's Day

I found a pretty cool looking 28mm horse and cart while I was checking stuff out on EBay yesterday, propped in front of my computer. I took a screen shot and sent it to Mona, because that's the sort of miniature she likes, and she said via an email from the other room, and I quote "on the subject of the Celtic cart....yes. I must possess the tiny cart. All are powerless in the presence of its tiny charm."; I quickly sent her an email back that it was nice and all, but it was a British import, and it was still made from metal, so it was too pricey for my cheap-ass bargain hunting ways. She insisted that I find the tiny Celtic cart and purchase it as cheaply as possible, but NOW. As it turned out as cheap as possible was on the Warlord Games website, where they offered a suspiciously low rate of shipping to the US, but had a minimum order of $15.00. So I dug around on the Celts section of the site and added the cheapest stuff I could find to my cart, then proceeded to check out to see if it was true; by now my wife was sitting next to me waiting in anticipation. As it turned out, it was true, so then she told me to go ahead and complete that transaction, because she liked the miniatures I had picked out AND then go back in and order her the Celtic Cart. Yes, my normally frugal wife, who is always suspicious when I get large packages full of miniatures here, where usually I paid more for the shipping than the miniatures themselves ORDERED me to buy over $40.00 worth of brand new miniatures. Here's a picture of the Horse and Cart, I'll save the others as a surprise for when they arrive.

I also found a picture of a pizza that looks like the Necronomicon from the Evil Dead movies.

That's all for today, bad back or no, I still have to go see my dad today.

Two Things Didn't Suck Today

First I got this book in the mail from Amazon; actually one of their affiliated sellers, because it's a used, out of print book, but nevertheless it was nice to see it arrive.

The only real downside to this is that it's book three in the series, so now both two and three have arrived, but one is taking it's sweet time. Fine I've got a bunch of other stuff to read anyway.

The other thing that didn't suck was my discovery of this-

Which can be purchased here.I like me some Roman on Celt action, especially when their is creepy magic involved and it can be used to glean ideas for my own Garnia campaign world, which has both Romans and Celts from Earth transported there through magical means.

Plus, it already has a supplement so you can play as the Britons! Celts FTW!

Which can be purchased here. Now, if you are a little leery of paying over twenty dollars for this pair of pdf files when you don't really have any idea about the game system I have a couple of things to say, first the interior art is top notch - here's a couple of examples they have posted on their website, so I am not giving anything away that they aren't.

Second, it's based on a game they give away for FREE on their website, so you can check that game, Zenobia, out and see if you think it's going to spin your spurs or not before making the purchase.

Third, it got a pretty good review here.

Now the rest of my day pretty well sucked because I pulled a muscle in my back a couple of days ago and it's the kind of thing I would have shook off twenty years ago, now it's got me laid up for days. I also got the invitation to my 25th high school reunion. Between these two things and the fact that when I look in the mirror there is more gray than brown in my beard I am just feeling age hit me hard.

Dawn Patrol and Old School Battlestar Galactica

But first, this picture I randomly ran across on another blog of some Scythians, among the oldest school Steppe Warriors out there; so it's a shout out to my old Guildies from AOL's version of Neverwinter Nights and Yurt dwelling folk everywhere.

Next, I ran across these pics on another blog.

Now I am not generally a huge fan of Sci-Fi cross-overs, but seeing the Cylon on the Enterprise bridge was pretty cool. The second one just reminded me of how I didn't get my Gold Cylon when I sent away for it. Which reminded me of how I was similarly screwed out of this-

What is it with me NOT getting Battlestar Galactica stuff when I was a kid? Was it Karma because I was the only kid I knew that got the Colonial Viper for Christmas that year? Everyone else got stuck with the lame almost viper toys, or, if they were lucky like two of my friends, got the Cylon Raider.

What were they thinking there? Kids will love having a ship never seen on the show? A Viper-esque thing on wheels will be great! Don't toy company execs actually ever have kids look at their proposed toys? Because the Viper and the Raider were the only ones they produced that were necessary. A shuttle might have been nice, or anything in the action figure scale. Action figures with detail and articulation at least as nice as Kenner's Star Wars figures would have made it a competitive line too, as it was I got all of mine as gifts; despite being a HUGE BSG fan (at 9 years old I was apparently their demographic), I knew their action figures were crap. Oddly enough, I have the Muffitt figure sitting on my desk- top shelf, center, under the light, on top of my Cesare Borgia tobacco tin full of old coins, behind a bunch of old school D&D miniatures, mostly Heritage and Ral Partha, some Grenadier or others.

Now I guess that it is apropos to this discussion, in a roundabout way, of BSG that my new copy of Dawn Patrol came in the mail today. Here are the pictures:

It is pretty nearly complete, I didn't count the counters, but the rest of the contents are there except for two maneuver cards used for tailing/being tailed. There are three complete sets of maneuver cards and one set missing two. My wife Mona actually volunteered to make some more sets using her skills with art and graphics programs and I can then print them out onto heavy paper and she'll cut the new decks out. There was also this odd box of counters that doesn't actually go to Dawn Patrol. I've been a Wargamer for three decades and I don't recognize these guys, anyone know what game they're from?

My wife took this picture with our digital camera, because I am impaired at photography, so I thank her for that

Anyway, over the years I have built and rebuilt BSG RPGs, and never got anyone to play with me, even my buddies like Lance who LOVES the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica. How Dawn Patrol fits in to all of this is that in a couple of incarnations of my BSG RPG, I pretty much used Dawn Patrol as a chassis for the fighter combat. Obviously, it needs some modification to make it a space fighter combat game, but, in theory, it works all right. I say in theory, because I never playtested it against anyone but myself. I don't exactly know when I started "designing" games, it seems like I must have been in high school, but that seems kind of late for a BSG project. Probably earlier, I was always stuck chasing the Questing Beast that is the perfect RPG as Big Darryl's Squire, so modifying rules was in my gaming blood from the time I was in junior high I guess.

I don't know how many iterations my BSG RPG went through. I do know that every time some hot new game system came along down the pike I had to see what it had that I could use, modify or be inspired by. I rewrote the WEG D6 Star Wars game into a BSG RPG, that was dead simple, all you really have to do is remove the Jedi and change some terminology. I had an entire GURPS version once, and I didn't even own any GURPS books at the time. Having access to your friends and mentors gaming libraries is a good thing. I am pretty sure I quit trying to put together an original series BSG RPG sometime in the mid 1990s; I am going to guess that I figured if it hadn't happened by then, it just wasn't going to happen. I know I quit before the D20 craze, otherwise I'd probably have driven myself nuts trying to make it happen again and have everyone in my D&D group be all lukewarm on the idea.

Of Yurts, and Books

I have recently decided that my project for this summer is to build a Yurt for camping. Am I taking this Great Khan thing too far? I don't think so. I have been in the SCA for decades now and Yurts are kind of a pain in the ass to set up, but are the palaces of the tent world. I have actually been trying to get my wife Mona to agree to building Yurts for us to live in full time, year round, for about a decade or more, but she is reticent to live in what she refers to as a "glorified tent", despite the fact that there are actually people doing just this very thing in upstate NY. There is even a campground along the Salmon river that uses Yurts for lodges year round. So I figure a really kick-ass camping Yurt may change her mind. Plus they are ecologically sound, reducing our footprint significantly, and I think it would be cool to have each of my kids get their own Yurt, like having a more private bedroom; they're all teenagers now. Ashli will be twenty in October, while her condition currently precludes her from living on her own, I am pretty sure a Yurt of her own would be OK. So I bought these books to help me with my Yurt quest, I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I imagine they'll be useful, they had good Amazon reviews.

I already had this one from years ago, back then it was simply referred to as the definitive Yurt book. I learned a lot from this book, but I figured more information is always better.

Otherwise I just would have stuck with this one. It's a do it yourself guide to everything Mongolian, including Yurt building, but also clothing and the Uighur alphabet, among other things. It's real hands on, written for SCA folk.

Now, I also mentioned I had been reading some Mongol history recently, this is the book, it apparently accompanied a BBC series I will most likely never get to see. I have read a lot of Mongol history in the past too, this was just something new for me. I have an entire shelf of books devoted to the Mongols actually, with a couple more books on the way soon, not counting the Yurt books of course. Are there any Mongol RPG books out there? Was there ever a GURPS Mongols? I mean, I have TSR's "The Horde" and "Forgotten Realms Horde Campaign" for 2nd edition AD&D, and I bought the companion novels "The Empires Trilogy- Horselords, Dragonwall and Crusade"; spoiler alert- so they can keep the Forgotten Realms at status quo ante bellum they might just as well have never introduced any of the main characters in "The Horde" boxed set, they're all dead or irrelevant by the end of the 3rd book.

As far as history goes, I also got this in the mail today, it was a seminal read for the formation of our Mongol online gaming guild- The Steppe Warriors

And, because I am a giant Mongol nerd, I also got this, but I haven't had a chance to start it yet. I am still finishing up the last series I was writing about.

This copy of the L5R RPG's Boxed set "City of Lies" came in the mail yesterday, funny story, I was bidding on three boxed sets, two of which I had never seen before. They were all from the same seller, so I figured if I won all three I'd just pass this along to Dalton since he has an interest in running the L5R RPG, but I'd save on shipping and all. I got super sniped at the end of the auction on the other two and only won the one I already had.

Lastly, this came in the mail today, another WotC D20 Star Wars Sourcebook. I really liked the New Jedi Order series of novels, so I wanted to see their take on all of it, and, of course, it was an excellent deal.

Permission Granted

Aside from some resizing issues to bring it down to my old, normal banner size; it went pretty smoothly. The artist is named Aras Daamoon and he is from Iran, so the permission came through pretty quickly. He is LordAras on Deviantart if anyone is interested in checking out his other work.

This was a runner up in the new banner quest. It is called "Artist in his world" by Happymorningstar, also at deviantart.

Thinking about a change

I didn't get in any gaming this weekend. None at all, two weekends in a row. Everyone was either sick, working, gone elsewhere or just incommunicado. So I hard-coded subtitles of Samurai movies and played some Crusader Kings, OK, I guess that's technically gaming, but not with other people. I also have been playing my one Facebook L5R game- Emerald Empire as we wait for Facebook to actually follow through on their threat to shut us down, I have been frantically trying to wrap up old and new story lines for my character Akodo Kotaro; who I am sure you will all be pleased to know is now a level 203 Akodo Bushi.

Anyway, the real change I was thinking about making to this blog was changing the banner picture at the top, it's been there for a long time and I really like it, but I found this cool banner pic while I was cruising around looking for more Mongol pics. You can never have too many when you are the Great Khan; so here it is-

  It's called "Onrush of the Mongols" by LordAras at Deviantart. I think it kind of rules because it has a medieval feel to it with the characters being different sizes, proportions non-existent, important things are bigger to draw the eye; and it has a DRAGON. The beheading is pretty cool too. The Arabic writing is a nice touch, I have no idea what it says, but if I ever get curious enough I know a couple of Arabic speakers that might be able to make it out.

What do you all think? Time to change the venerable green battle picture or no?

Mostly About Books Today

I will come clean and admit that I spent the greater part of my day playing Crusader Kings, it's the first time I've booted into Windows in a long time, since November 11th of last year to be exact, but I needed access to some Windows only software that I own so that I could hard code srt files to avi files or other video formats. There is probably free software that does it better available for Linux, but I didn't feel like looking for it and then learning how to use it. I forgot that if you don't run Windows for a long time, and I forget this every time I go months without booting into Windows, that there will be something like two hours worth of updates and scans that need to be run before my computer is really available for anything, so I read for a while, while I kept an eye on my computer.

I've been reading more lately anyway, eastern philosophy and Asian history; not all Japanese stuff either, remember I am the Great Khan. Which leads me to the first bunch of books. I got this book-

at a local Salvation Army thrift shop one day while my wife was busy at a seminar at the County building across the street. I thought it looked cool and I had seen very little in the way of Mongol oriented fantasy. Now, reading novels is how I reward myself for doing research on whatever topic I happen to be researching at the time, and I happened to be researching the Mongols anyway and how I was going to make them work in a fantasy setting. So I did the Mongol history and some Mongol folklore/mythology/religious practices, then I figured I'd dive into this book and see this guy's take on it all. Then I realized it was the sequel to a trilogy, essentially the 4th book in the series, and I was mightily annoyed. So I went on Amazon; where I had just bought the Mongol research book anyway, and I ordered the whole trilogy.

And I read them, as it turns out, it was very helpful to have read them, and they are a self contained story that covers the rest of the fantasy Asia that the author has created. The story mostly takes place in the alt-China, but you roam all over the fantasy Asia and the main character of the "4th book" is a secondary character introduced along the way. They were pretty good though, so I am not too annoyed that I read them.

Next, I guess it's no big secret that I went from Legend of the Five Rings and Rokugan hater to enormous fan. I have been buying up old L5R RPG stuff and Clan War stuff like there's no tomorrow. I bought and read the Clan War novels last year. There was one for each major clan- Scorpion, Unicorn, Crane, Phoenix, Crab and Dragon. Some were better than others. Recently, as in a couple of weeks ago, I discovered a second series of L5R novels: The Four Winds Saga. So these have been trickling in for a week or so now, the last one made it here today.

Next on the list, Lowell Francis on the Age of Ravens blog did Samurai week this week with a very helpful recommended reading list for running a Samurai RPG. Since I am obsessed with remaking AD&D's Oriental Adventures right AND I have a mostly female gaming group I decided to hop on over to Amazon and go with the Tomoe Gozen saga that was recommended, I ordered yesterday and the first of three came today. Sadly it's the second book, but I haven't finished reading "Lords of Grass and Thunder" yet anyway. Remarkably quick shipping though, I didn't pay for overnight delivery.

Lastly, these came in the mail yesterday, but I'd already posted my blog. Some more old school WEG D6 Star Wars stuff I bought on EBay with conversion to WotC D20 in mind.

It's getting late now, gotta go.  

D&D Next Playtest

I know I am a little behind the curve on this one, it's been a busy time for me. My dad has been in the hospital, I had a friend break her leg and she hasn't got anyone else to take her to her appointments, Ashli has had her appointments and even Ember had a dentist appointment stuck in there since I got the playtest packet. I had skimmed the first few pages before and wasn't really happy with what I saw.

Last night I finally got around to reading the entire "How to Play" and "DM Guidelines", as well as all the characters. Having read through most of the packet, I am now much more ambivalent about the entire project. I guess I am going to have to actually play the damned thing to get a feel for it before making a final decision, but my gut tells me that there are some things I am going to like and some things I am going to hate, and a couple of things I am just going to wonder what on earth they were thinking when they came up with that idea?

I suspect those are the 4th editionisms that people in the OSR blogosphere have mentioned, but 4th edition is a real blind spot for me, I took one skim through the 1st Player's Handbook (I have heard they have more than one) and said "Nope, this isn't for me". I had already abandoned WotC D&D with 3rd edition, first for Hackmaster, then I just went back to 1st edition AD&D, but 4th edition was a disappointment for me nonetheless because of the pre-release hype, and at least one playtester's report I read that said he was selling all his 3rd edition D&D stuff while it was still worth something, because 4th edition was JUST THAT AWESOME!

D&D Next, and I hope they change the title, doesn't seem to suck so hard as 4th edition did, and it was nice of them to put the "modular" old school section on the character sheet. They could still FUBAR this edition by adding in all the stupid races from 4th edition when all is said and done, to please their current customer base. I won't be pleased to see Dragonborn as a player race, not in a core book anyway, or any of the other odd races they added just so they could be different from every previous edition of D&D.

As I predicted, Race as Class is dead as a doornail, so we're getting a B/X meets AD&D 2nd edition vibe with a bunch of 3rd edition mechanics and terminology thrown in for good measure. So I guess what I'd like to see are four core classes, Cleric, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard (I know we're not going to go back to Magic-User), and four core races Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling (despite my personal dislike for Halflings, they are traditional for the game). Demi-Human level limits are probably gone the way of the Dodo too, so too I imagine are Class restrictions based on Race, so I imagine they'll end up with the 3rd edition style "Preferred Class" or whatever it was called.

I don't have a problem with the game evolving over time, it's evolving it into a tactical miniatures game, that, as DM, I am expected to lose every week that I really have a problem with. I also have a problem with having an actual rule for every possible situation, it steals from the power of the DM and just empowers rules lawyers. So far this seems like a step in the right direction (except for neutering the Cleric). The next time I actually get to game, I guess we'll see.

Kind of bummed.

Eduard Khill, better known as the internet's Trololo guy died today. So let's play his iconic video one more time, for old time's sake and remember him.




Rest in peace, Eduard. You entertained millions, even before you were an internet meme.

I also got this stuff in the mail today. I had a copy of the Living Force Campaign Guide, but my wife misplaced it; fortunately it came as part of a package deal with the book I didn't already have, the Power of the Jedi Sourcebook.

I just hit 200th level

But the game, Emerald Empire- based on the Legend of the Five Rings RPG is going to be shut down by Facebook in three days, unless the developer can meet some sort of extraordinary standards. Essentially, Facebook is shutting down all the small, independent games so Zynga and their like can rule the social network gaming world. Anyway, I took a screenshot of his character sheet for posterity, he's attired for battle here, since he's currently fighting a battle and he's a battle oriented character anyway.