Luke Skywalker

This man was my number one hero growing up. He was everything I wanted to be, and everything I felt I couldn't be.

He was the HERO of the series. It was his DESTINY to help the rebel alliance overthrow the evil Galactic Empire. It was his DESTINY to fight against the father who abandoned him as a babe. And, right there we cut a little too deep. Lol.

I have the greatest dad in the world. I really do. But, I don't know the man who donated his genetics for my existence. I know his name, but I've never seen him. I've never even seen a picture of him. I tell myself that's fine and dandy, that I don't need to know him or anything about him to know how well my life is going to turn out, but there's always that little voice in the back of my head. The one that whispers how unwanted I am.

I am wanted though. I am needed. By my mom, by the man I call dad, by my wife, and by every other member of my family. I am needed and I am happy.

I don't need to know a sperm donor to be happy.

So, back to Luke Skywalker...

I got nothing. Lol.

He's the first to become a Jedi after the bulk of the Jedi Order was obliterated by the Sith lord, Darth Sidious, at the end of the Clone Wars. He's trained by both Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda, two of the primary figures in the Jedi Order, and they were the only ones to survive the culling of the Jedi.

Luke successfully uses the force to destroy the Death Star... and good God Almighty! After basically worshiping him through my early teens (I read my first Star Wars novel in the 6^th grade, and I'd seen the movies before that), you would think I'd have more to say about him.

He's a hero archetype, and one of the ones everyone wants to see. Luke Skywalker has nothing at the beginning of the story. Even the characters around him don't have any reason to find something special in him. This is part of the underdog, the unexpected hero. He's a regular Joe, so far as the casual movie goer cares to know. Then he's taken out of his natural environment and thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

That experience works to harden him, inside and out, as he goes through different trials. Luke is not the same Luke he was at the beginning of the story. He's not the same Luke that sneaked the droids past Stormtroopers. He's not the same Luke who rescued Princess Leia. He's not the same Luke as when Darth Vader murdered Obi-wan Kenobi. Each experience compounds on the last, driving him forward, until the moment when he destroys the first Death Star. That moment is when he stops being a child, when he stops relying on toys, and takes comfort in the power of the force.

Luke “becomes” a man when he chooses to use the force over the targeting computer. He grew because he stepped out of his comfort zone and realized, yes, I am small, but I destroyed the Death Star. I can take on the Empire. I can make a difference. That was the real climactic point in the movie. Not when the Death Star was destroyed, but when he relied on the force. The climactic point of both the inner struggle and the physical/exterior struggle should come at the same time for the greatest effect on the audience.

And, I don't remember what I was talking about now. I should really find some way to organize these things so they make more sense.

I dunno.

Ryan

6-17/18-14

Data

You would think a blog post for this topic would be very broad and kind of vague. I mean after all, just how much data is in the world? How many giggaquads or whatever? But, no, to me this topic is easily narrowed down. Narrowed down so much in fact, that it refers to one character in particular.

Lieutenant Commander Data, the android Chief of Operations officer and third in command on board the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 D and the E, and he was the captain of the F at one point in time. At least according to Star Trek Online h was the captain of the Enterprise F. The one in charge of the ship until the Andorian captain Val'kel Shon took over due to a sitation totally outside of the capacity of a fictional universe to take care of.

For some reason, CBS won't release the rights for the Star Trek androids to be used in the MMORPG. This is something Cryptic and Perfect World (the developer of the game and the owners respectively) have been working to resolve since Star Trek Online first launched. This is also a topic I could really run off on a major tangent on, so I'm going to nip that in the bud right there.

So, what else is there to talk about?

Well, Data is technically the third of his kind, and is the most perfect of the three Soong androids. B-4 was the first and most imperfect android. B-4's only appearance was in Star Trek Nemesis, the last Next Generation movie and the last one before the Abrams reboot. He was basically a plot bunny placed in the movie to make it possible to revive Data in later films. It's like when Spock touched McCoy and said remember.

Where Spock passed his Katra (life force or something like that) on to Dr. McCoy, so that he could be revived when his body was basically cloned on the Genesis planet. Yeah, and that's a tangent all on it's own.

My brain stopped.

Anyway, Data's programming overrides B-4's and he takes over as the dominant personality in the body. And, with how primitive B-4's positronic network is, Data probably erases all traces of his “special” brother.

That being said. It could be entirely possible that none of this is accepted as canon.

Why?

Not because Disney just bought it and nixed the entirety of the extended universe. Nope, it's just because of how canon works with Star Trek.

With Star Wars the canon was pretty well open, seeing as there were only three movies out when the EU started, and those movies were rather vague on what took place before the movies and what would happen afterword. So, those creative individuals who were interested took up their pens and pencils and breathed life into the EU.

When it comes to Star Trek there have been 5 television series and 12 movies. There's plenty of “official” material that out weighs the other material produced. The novels and video games, the comic books, and all the other fan made products have no bearing whatsoever on what happens in upcoming Star Trek products.

This might change, however. Star Trek: Renegades is a fan produced pilot for a new television series set to air in the fall. It's hoped that the ratings and the turnout will be enough to move Paramount & CBS into picking up the show and making it a regular series. The next Star Trek series.

But, still, none of this points towards a canon conclusion of what happened with Data. GRAH!!!

Ryan

6-6-14

PS: I didn't realize how far off topic I went... but oh well. Maybe I'll cover the rest in a later post. Lol. 

Elemental Telekinetic Abilities

Don't worry, looking at the title kind of confuses me tool. Lol. But, it's something you'll pick up on really quickly.

Why?

Because this subject has been covered in a wide array of media, including Disney's most recent animated endeavor. Frozen is the story of the Ice Queen Elsa (her sister Anna and some boys are mentioned too, I think) as she grows from frightened child into a frightened adult who eventually embraces her abilities and sings a lovely song about it. And, now you'll be singing that song all day, courtesy of Indina Menzel and Disney.

Anyway, Elsa is a cryokinetic. This basically means that she's a psychic whose powers manifest as bursts of extremely cold energy which freezes the water vapor in the air (this also makes it a subschool of hydrokinesis, the ability to manipulate water). It's a spontaneous ability that is tied, like all other things, to the emotions of it's wielder, and if their emotions are chaotic and uncontrollable, such as Elsa who spent most of her life as a recluse and terrified of herself, then their powers are going to be chaotic and uncontrollable.

Example: Elsa in public for the first time in fifteen years and her little sister tells her she got engaged after knowing a guy for less than fifteen minutes. Elsa, understandably enough, flew off the handle and her powers went wild. That caused the crowd around her to freak out and cry witchcraft and sorcery, and Elsa got afraid. That drove her powers further and further out of her control. Then she ran away and caused an eternal winter, or something like that.

And, another popular example of a cryokinetic: Frozone from The Incredibles. And, Ice Man from the X-men.

But, cryokinesis isn't the only elemental psychokinetic power possible.

You have pyrokinetics like the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four and Charlie McGee from the Stephen King novel Firestarter. (It's also Mr. King we have to thank for the word pyrokinetic, and any derivatives thereof. Such as words that replace the prefix pyro or tele with another prefix implying some other element.)

You have terrakinetics like Terra from the Teen Titans series.

And Hydrokinetics such as Aquaman, Mermaidman, and Percy Jackson (along with the aforementioned cryokinetics).

Aerokinesis= Storm from X-men. (The technical definition of her power is Weather Manipulation, this, however is a subschool of Air Manipulation as all weather phenomena (with the exception of earthquakes and volcanoes) involve the air in one state of being or another.)

Then you have Benders. This, so far as I can tell, is an Asian term (not sure which culture; my apologies for lack of accuracy) for an individual who can control the elements in one way or another.

There is one thing I would like to note, however. However much it may look like sorcery or magic, it's not. Elemental kinesis is a psychokinetic ability controlled strictly by the mind and instinct. Think of the media you've seen. Can the Human Torch turn himself invisible and teleport from one sid eof the earth to the other. No, he can't, lol. Because his powers are of the mind, not the arcane. It is, however, possible that Johnny Storm could learn how to use the arcane. If he can keep his you-know-what in his pants long enough to study.

Anywho, I'm out.

And, later, I might try to explain how all of this fits into Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons. That is, after I do some research and figure it out for myself. Lol.

Ryan

5-22-14

Mermaids

Ah, mermaids, a topic I’m less than interested in. Lol. And, one that always makes me think of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. It’s a tale as old as time… wait… that’s Beauty and the Beast. Anyway, The Little Mermaid is about a girl falling in love upon her first glance of a gorgeous guy (requisite eye roll), and how she goes head over fin to change herself to make previously mentioned gorgeous guy to fall in love with her.

Gag.

Yeah, part of me is kidding about all of that, and part of me is being straight up honest. Which part do you think it is?

And, on the topic of mermaids, this little gem seems to have been floating around the internet. How many of you are excited to see it?!?

Well, I’m bursting your bubble. It’s bunk. This is the work of a photoshop artist named Thomas Kurinawan, and he’s gone about transforming many celebrities into Disney princesses. Some of these photoshop works are well done, some of them aren’t, and I’m not much of a judge because I don’t know a lot about photoshop. But, I also know what I think looks good, and about half of that looks… I’ll not throw stones. Lol.

And, now I suppose I should try and find a way to work mermaids into my game, but I’m not really sure I want to. Lol.

Mermaids would be easy to fit into the game though. The current setting, a pirate port in the Underhaven by the name of Netheretia, is situated on the coast of an underground sea that meets with the actual ocean through a number of naturally occurring portals. So, I could easily see to it that there’s a colony of merfold settled in Netheretia’s bay or just outside of one of the natural portals.

I might even be able to work that into the overall campaign. The main beastie (the same one I talked about in my Dreams post) comes from the depths of the ocean, much deeper than any merfolk could possibly go, but his forces could attack a merfolk colony and the PCs could be coerced into investigating the situation. And, by coerced I mean their lives will be snuffed out if they refuse… Did I say that out loud? Shit.

Anywho, I believe it’s time for me to shut up before I give away anymore game secrets. Lol.

Ryan

2-27-14

Fairies

It’s that time of day again guys and gals. Time to write a blog post… Well, it’s past time to write this post. I was given the topic around three or four pm and now it’s fifteen till one in the morning.

So, now I’m supposed to come up with something to say about Fairies.

My wife looked at me earlier and asked me if I really used the blog topics to come up with ideas for the games. I just smiled at her. Out of frustration she gave me fairies, and I’m betting she’s thinking what could possibly go wrong with fairies introduced into the game, and well… she must really not be thinking about these things.

Why?

Because there are so many things that could go wrong with fairies.

http://a-muse-sing.deviantart.com/art/mischievous-fairy-178661902

First off, in Dungeons and Dragons (at least to my knowledge) you won’t come across a single creature described as a fairy. Rather you’ll come across the fey type. The fey cover many different types of creatures including nymphs, dryads, satyrs, pixies, sprites, grigs, nixies, mephitis, and the list could go on for quite some time. If it’s related to nature it’s probably a fey type creature. (Even elves, in mythology not D&D, are considered a type of fey.)

Now, what could go wrong with those?

Fey are often goodly aligned creatures which is kind of counter intuitive with the alignments of my current PC party. I have three chaotic evil PCs (like the Joker) a neutral evil PC (like the xenomorph from aliens) a true neutral PC (he reminds me of an Ent, quite a bit, though he has a much shorter temper) and a lawful neutral PC (imagine Jean Luc Picard as a dwarf). None of them, except maybe the true neutral orc, would get along with the good/chaotically aligned fey.

Not sure where this one came from.

Then you have your evil fey.

Maleficent comes to mind. The evil fairy god mother from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

Ganondorf, a corrupted Gerudo, a desert dwelling type of fey in the Legend of Zelda series.

Damien, a pixie half-fiend of my own creation, formerly he was a character in a comic strip one of my players (Robbie, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember the name of the strip!) was drawing. He’s a high level wizard that has made an appearance in my games before, and he will probably make an appearance in this one as well.

Then we have Faetria… who I’m not going to talk about, because I just came up with her. I feel she’ll play an important part in the game to come. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Anywho, I can’t think of anything else to say right now, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Later kids.

Ryan

2-18-14

PS: I could be totally wrong about the Fey and fairy connection in Dungeons and Dragons. There could be fairies in the game and I just skipped right over them. If you know one way or the other, let me know in the comments below.

Legend of Zelda

First off, I want to say that the first thing to come to mind when I hear those words are the theme to the game. I would try to recreate the melody here, but that would be ineffective since this is a text medium instead of an audio or visual medium. Therefore I shall use Youtube to refresh your memory.

And, for shits and giggles, here’s the version with lyrics.

Now, we all know what musical ditty I’m talking about and I’ve probably managed to get at least one of them stuck in your head. I consider my job well done on that part.

But, alas, the ditty is not what the topic of today’s post is going to be about. I’ve had a lot of serious crap on my mind today, and I asked Mel for a topic that wasn’t. Serious that is. And, I’m getting stuck. Lol. I don’t actually know what to say about the Legend of Zelda.

Well, first off, it’s not about humans. There’s not a single character (in most of the games I believe) that is human. There might be some in Majora’s Mask, but I can’t remember right now. Instead of humans the game is about Hylians, an elven subrace. Yes, boys and girls, Link is in some way related to Legolas. I’m not sure if that’s here or there, but yes, they’re elves.

This means they have a +2 to dexterity and a -2 to constitution. And, since Link seems to be very adaptable (we’ll consider that a racial feature) I’ll go ahead and say that Hylian Elves get an additional feat at first level. And, I would put their favored class as Ranger, instead of the elves typical choice of wizardry.

Yes, somehow this became a discussion about Link and Hylians being Dungeons and Dragons characters. Or rather how they would fit into the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder by extension.

I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Applying D&D rules and stats to things that actually have very little to do with the game.

Take Maleficent as an example: Russell and I went back and forth for an hour or two about how she would fit into D&D. I think we finally settled on her being a black dragon with levels in the Druid class that assumes the shape of a fey or sylvan woman (a fairy in other words). And, I think that’s a pretty fair run, given what powers she showed in the classic Sleeping Beauty movie, and the upcoming movie Maleficent trailers. (Most people would say she’s a sorcerer, but nah. I’m pretty sure she’s a druid. Though she might be a druid that’s taken levels in sorcerer to expand her repertoire of malefic magic.)

Then a couple of months ago a friend and I were trying to make stats up for the Headless Horseman for a Halloween themed adventure.

And, all of that has been in good fun. :D

So, yes, Link is a Hylian Elf Ranger who carries a +5 Reflective Shield and a +3 Holy Avenger.

Later Kids.

Ryan

1-29-14

Lazy Day

Well, today I have been entirely unproductive. Lol. It is one o’clock at the time of this writing (so technically, it’s actually being written on the day it’s being published) and I have had my blog done hours before bed time typically. But, today I didn’t. Today, I kicked back and relaxed, enjoyed some music, a little booze, and what might as well have been a four hour nap. Lol. I really sat in my chair for that long, doing nothing at all. And, my god for once it was glorious.

I don’t like it though. Not all the way.

I did have plans for the day, that didn’t get done because of my lazy streak. But, those plans can be accomplished tomorrow as easily as they could have been done today. This is not me justifying procrastination; no this is me stating that my plans don’t have a super set deadline. Today, in fact, is the first day since I started with my goals that I let any of them goes past the point I where I was supposed to do them. I’ll still get the majority of them done (the two hours of writing I had planed has kind of been nixed, I don’t want to stay up till four in the morning, then have to get up to take Erik to work at 7ish, wouldn’t be healthy driving time).

As for what is there to talk about?

A couple of things I suppose.

First, Maleficent is going to be one of the most bad ass movies ever to premier, and yes, it’s a Disney movie. It premiers in May, but I want it to come out now… I get chills each time I watch the trailer. Sleeping Beauty has been my all time favorite fairy tale, and now my all time favorite villain is taking her place in the spotlight. She will take it, using all the powers of Hell!!! (I love you momma :)

Second, Cracked.com has put out a call for submissions. They accept submissions year round, but it’s generally this time of year that they really bring your attention to it. And, I think I’m going to try and get something published. I’ve got a concept I think will be funny, and it might match their styling, but I’m not sure yet…. No, I’m not giving the idea away. :P This idea is all mine.

Third… I need to learn how to draw… I ask people to draw things for me, and they say sure, give me some time… and then I never hear back from them. And, I’m like “oh, I’m not going to bother them, they might be busy with something else” instead of doing what I asked them too. And, if I could just draw it myself I wouldn’t have a problem. However, if there is an artist among you that wishes to draw creatures and monsters for me at a cheap rate (read free) then I would love to hear from you down in the comments section.

Plus I have to learn to draw. I played with a random animal generator and I got the animals, a bull and a praying mantis. Now I need to learn how to draw, how to draw those creatures, and then draw a picture of them combined in some horrific way. And, just to make things fun for my DnD group, I’m going to come up with stats for that ugly beastie and see what they think of it. It might wind of up looking something like this:

http://spipes.deviantart.com/art/The-Undead-Bears-for-Shark-208186166

\

Only it’ll be a little more along the lines of a bull and a praying mantis. Mainly because I don’t want to claim someone else’s work as my own. I dunno.

Anywho… I’m about to drop into bed, and I’m nowhere near it. So, I shall talk at you kids later.

Ryan

1-27-14