This week I’ve got a spectacularly done Toothless Plush by nooby-banana.
But, you know what’s better than a Toothless Plush? A Toothless Plush with a DIY Tutorial, that’s what. I’d totally make one of these if I wasn’t woefully incompetent at sewing. It’s just flipping adorable.
Entries from the journal of Etur Oltarmubun, Undertaker and Master Carptenter of Scoutbridge.
1st Granite, 504,
Today it came down to me to inform Kadol of an issue the others discovered with his plan to vacate Scoutbridge this Spring. Namely, that I disassembled the wagon and used it to make some of those coffins last fall. At the time it seemed like a sound enough idea, since we needed coffins quickly and that wood was just sitting there not doing a useful thing. Maybe if we’d had two wagons with such convenient wood, I’d still have me arm.
Today’s game is only sort of a game, but still really neat. Today I bring you Rory’s Story Cubes.
Story cubes are more of an imagination exercise than an actual game. However, the list of activities people have though up for these cubes is pretty hefty. The cubes are aimed more at the younger folk to help bolster imaginative thought processes. Again, not really a game, but still really neat. Their example of super-heroes and villains on the site itself actually opens the doors for use of these cubes (or indeed any kind of randomization generator) as a DM/GM tool. One of the things that I’ve always wrestled with in my games is to create new/fresh villains. With a little imagination and some randomization, one might come up with a very interesting villain indeed.
In fact, using either the stock random flickr generator (before Yahoo screws it up, anyway), or any of the various random generators you can find with Google, you could produce a set of images from which to build just about any character or NPC in a gaming environment. It’s probably a little too chaotic for generating characters for literature, but I’m sure somebody could make it work.
Something to play with, at least.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
My sister, Lyle, is fast becoming one of the eminent cupcake chefs in Boise. One of her more delicious creations was an adaptation of banana pudding stuffed cake. She altered it into cupcake form, creating Banana Cream Poke Cupcakes, which were also termed “orgasmic cupcakes” by her coworkers.
My little bit of “help” on this creation was the suggestion of using a piping bag to force in fully set, or nearly fully set, pudding. That would cut down on the mess and make the pudding insertion more of an exact science.
On a similar yumtastic note, this particular recipe has opened my eyes to some possibilities of my own. Specifically a new direction I can take my favorite cake recipe to make it even better.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
I’ve never done any StarCraft crafts here, so I think I’ll put an end to that today with a plush Mr. Doomsfield pattern over at BoRoShan’s shop on Etsy.
Mr. Doomsfield is a friendly, top hat wearing, sewn plush variation of the Baneling from StarCraft II. It’s cute as the dickens and I know one or two people who would really like one of these. A real shame that I’m borderline incompetent when it comes to sewing.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
This week’s game is the medieval town building game Carcassonne, by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.
Carcassonne is a game that’s simple to learn, but can involve complex strategy to be good at. I very much enjoy that kind of game.
Basically it’s a game of completions. At the beginning of every turn you grab a play tile and have to fit it into your ever expanding map. This tile can be used to expand upon roads, fields, and towns, or complete roads and towns in order to score points. After you play a tile, you can play one of your citizens on that tile as one of four professions, which determines how they can be used to score points. Thieves sit on roads and score points based on the length of the road once it’s completed. Knights sit in towns and score points on the size of the town and number of banners in it when the town is completed by fully enclosing it in a wall. Monks are placed in monasteries and score points when the monastery is completely surrounded by other tiles. And finally farmers are placed on fields and score points at the end of the game by the number of adjacent completed towns.
Now, things get more complicated, tactical, when you realize that only 1 piece is allowed in any given road, town, or field, however, by strategically placing tiles, it’s possible to usurp a town or road before it’s completed by joining existing roads and towns together, thus putting the owner of that road or town into contention. Similarly, by placing difficult tiles on structures your opponents are trying to complete to score points, you can deny them scoring opportunities.
TacoMa’am picked us up a copy of Carcassonne recently and we had the pleasure of playing it over the weekend. It was a good buy and I’m anxious to play it with a cohort of people so as to make things more chaotic.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
I’ve decided to carry on with Scoutbridge, since two years is really much shorter than I wanted the whole project to be. So here’s my reclamation group, randomized the same way that I randomized the original. Also, as an added rule to make things a little more manageable as the colony gets bigger I’m allowing training of Dwarves in untrained skills under the following conditions: 1) There must already be a dwarf with a skill level of master or higher in the skill to be trained (to simulate master/apprentice relationships). 2) The dwarf to be trained must have all redundant skills (basically any dwarves that are allowed to be trained as full-time soldiers). 3) Only 1 dwarf per Master Skill holder may be trained at a time. Once the trainee hits expert in the skill, they are considered a journeyman and the master may take a new apprentice. 4) While Dwarves may apprentice in multiple skills, they may only hold one apprenticeship one at a time.
This also addresses what will be done with children when they grow up. When children grow up, the are available to be apprenticed as above, but otherwise cannot be assigned any untrained labor beyond being drafted into the military.
This new rule will help with a situation where I might end up with 200+ dwarves but only one of them can cook and brew.
The Scoutbridge Reclamation party:
Kadol Tolismomuz: Stonecrafter, Liar, Potash Maker
Meng Onulakrul: Misc Object User, Leader, Mason
Dodok Saziratham: Concentration, Wound Dresser, Lye Maker, M
Sigun Gebarrigoth: Wax Worker, Pacifier, Spearman, M
Logem Loloridath: Appraiser, Diagnostician, Negociator, F
Sakzul Olonmeng: Spinner, Animal Trainer, Glass Maker
Dumed Lilaredem: Herbalist, Mason, Leader
Kit:
1x Cougar Leather Bag
1x Chestnut Bucket
7x Black Sand
8x Pond Turtle
6x Bronze Bolt
1x Giant Mango Wood Axe Blade
6x Pig Tail Fiber Thread
9x Giant Cave Spider Silk Thread
1x Groundhog Leather Low Boot
1x Cedar Bucket
1x Bronze Pick
1x Kapok Crutch
1x Zinc Cage
6x Lungfish Blood
1x Maple Toy Hammer
1x Llama Wool Yarn
1x Guineafowl Blood
Onward!
This week I’ve got a crochet Bacteriophage tutorial for you all, by skbmo.
I know at least two people who would love one of these! I think I’ll add this to my extremely long list of crochet projects.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
This week’s game is the RPG-Lite board game Runebound, by Fantasy Flight Games.
Runebound will feel very familiar to anyone who’s ever played either a miniatures game or a pen and paper RPG. The game is actually a rather straight forward hack-and-slash style miniature game. Each player has their hero, whom can be equipped with items as well as having a few allies to assist. Everyone takes turns moving their character around the board while hunting down encounters. Encounters include easy (green), medium (yellow), hard (blue), and game end (red). When you engage one of these encounters, you usually end up battling a monster. Each monster and character have three scores: melee, ranged, and magic. In any battle, you must attack using one of these scores and defend using the other two. Winning an encounter usually results in some experience, money, and occasionally an item.
By using experience and items you can beef up your hero to tackle higher encounters. The game is won by satisfying the victory conditions, which change and are expanded by the huge number of expansions, but typically involve killing high-end dragon lords to collect their tokens.
Runebound is a great way to scratch that P&P itch a fellow is likely to get between sessions. And, with over 20 expansions, there’s a lot to do in the world of Runebound. Also, the straight forward system makes Runebound a very good for creating house rules.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
Sorry folks, been a tad busy with visitors over a long weekend. I’ll be back tomorrow with my missed Monday post, and I’ll have my normal Wednesday post on Thursday this week.
-Confusion is a state of mind, or is it?
