Episode 3: Jzadirune's Darkness (Conclusion)

After resting and recuperating, the party left the illusory forest and headed back north to the room where they had fought the floating jellyfish. There was another wall blocking the other exit to the room, and they broke it down to explore the northwest corner of the enclave. They found themselves in a corridor with several large machines. Jax pulled the lever on one of them, and the machine began to whirr and move, although they saw nothing happening nearby. Moving along, they came to a room in which another automaton was stationed, motionless. In the ceiling were a pair of fans, one of which was moving. the party realized that the machines in the hallway controlled these fans.

Under a large tarpaulin in the center of this room, they found a deactivated automaton in working condition. Written on it were some gnomish words that Erf identified as command words to control the automaton. He was right, although the automaton was limited in its capabilities. Erf climbed atop the automaton and ordered it to head into one of the tunnels it had already dug out. Following it, they came to a room filled with fog. Jax and Gandolf went back through the tunnel to the corridor with the fan machinery, and turned all of them on. By the time they got back to the foggy room, the fan was already working to disperse the mist. As it dissipated, the room was revealed to be an old library, now emptied of any valuables. It also held a quartet of enormous centipedes which attacked with ravenous hunger as the party explored. The centipedes were no match for the party's warriors, and no one was injured in the brief battle.

They returned to the automaton room and went down a flight of stairs; the automaton couldn't descend, so Erf deactivated it and left it behind. Following the stairs, they came to another 'Z' door, which opened easily with their key. Inside they found a workship for the construction of automatons, and a half-built automaton, long since abandoned and nonfunctional. But there was something else in this room, a creature that looked like a 'tall one' covered in rags. The creature tried to run past them into one of the automaton tunnels, but its way was blocked, and the battle was fierce. The creature was surprisingly tough, but it fell to Alexandria's axe. As it did, the rags that covered it suddenly separated from the tall one, gathered themselves together and flung themselves toward Jax. The paladin dodged the attack, and his bardiche cut into the mass of threads with razor sharpness. before long, the rags stopped moving.

Having explored almost the entire complex, the party returned to the forested room where they sought to enter the one area they had not yet encountered. An 'N' door blocked the way, but Erf was able to overcome it. He and Jax were once again the targets of the door's trap: a cloud of poisonous mist that made them dizzy, but both of them were able to hold their breaths and escape the cloud before it affected them any further.

Inside, the party saw empty weapon racks and a solitary chest, atop of which was a cage holding a rat. The rat squeaked excitedly as the party entered, and Ruphus observed that the rat was likely Keygan's nephew, captured and polymorphed into his current form. Eagerly, the party tried to take the cage, but as they approached the front of the chest split open into a toothy grin, addressing them in a blend of the Dwarven and Gnomish tongues. Erf, Arthur Morgan, and Yaervan were able to understand the talking chest (which Erf correctly identified as a mimic). After bribing the mimic with their remaining rations, Yaervan translated as Erf and Arthur Morgan conversed with the friendly creature. They learned that the 'tall ones' were called skulks, and were the ones who raided the surface for slaves, handing them off to hobgoblins working for a slaver named Kazmojen.

The skulks worked with the 'dark ones', the shadowy 'short ones' that the party had encountered in the enclave, under the direction of someone called Yuathyb. Ruphus identified Yuathyb as the tall, shadowy figure they had slain the day before. Finally, the mimic told them that he had once had a companion, a meaner, larger mimic that had been hired by Kazmojen to go down into the Malachite Fortress and guard the slaver's treasure. The talkative mimic also told the party that the way to the Malachite Fortress was just beyond the door behind him.

A quick discussion ensued, and the party agreed to take the nephew-rat back to the surface and report what they had discovered the Jenya. Hopefully, she would be able to break the enchantment on the young gnome-rat and return him to his proper form. After that, they would return and go down to the Malachite Fortress, continuing their search for the missing children whose lives hung in the balance.

As they began the return journey, Erf was finally able to unlock the mysterious book discovered under the theater stage. To his delight, it was a spellbook of gnomish design, and he eagerly perused its contents as he learned the new magics within. These new spells would serve him well in the unknown realm of the Malachite Fortress...

The next episode will be in two weeks' time. I hope you're enjoying the adventure!

Episode 3: Jzadirune's Darkness (continued)

Taking a few moments to allow Erf to recover from his ordeal, the party continued on south. Although their map showed no door or wall at the end, there was indeed a stone wall blocking their progress. There were also a couple of gear doors, and Erf attempted to pick the eastern 'R' door. This time, he was successful, and as the door slid open, a trio of enormous rats attacked. Alexandria panicked at the sight, having a fear of rats, and accidentally fell into the wall at the end of the corridor...and through it, disappearing from sight. While the rest of the party fought off the rats, Jax followed Alexandria through the wall, which turned out to be an illusion. Beyond it, they found a glowing map of Jzadirune that matched the one they had received from Keygan.

Outside, the rats were quickly dispatched, and the party joined Alexandria and Jax in the map room. There were two more gear doors, and since they had the 'Z' key, they opened the eastern door. This led them into a corridor which in turn led to a large hall, lit with dancing lights that floated near the ceiling. This hall included a freshwater pool, but they found nothing of interest within. Continuing on to the west, they found a room that looked like a theater, and in fact it was as an illusion began to show a play of an old gnomish fairy tale. Soon realizing the illusory nature of the show, the party explored the theater and found a trap door on the stage. Arthur Morgan was the first to descend, and found himself under attack from a creature with very long arms and horrible fangs. The crawlspace beneath the stage was too low for anyone, even Erf, to stand up straight, and in these cramped quarters it was difficult to fight the creature. Fortunately, even as the creature began to strangle the elf, Alexandria descended and fired her crossbow, striking the creature with sure accuracy and causing it to loosen its grip on the elf. It was not long before the creature was dispatched, and the party found a chest of treasure, including a locked book and another key, this one with a 'J' rune on it.

Now with three keys in their possession, the party had more options; leaving the theater, they found a 'J' door which opened easily to their key. in here was an abandoned art gallery, and in a secret room near the entrance they found several valuable paintings which they carried with them. They returned to the large hallway, hoping to pass into an area they had been unable to reach earlier. On their way through the hall, however, they were ambushed by no fewer than four of the 'tall ones'. Battle-tested and hardened by their experiences, the party were able to overcome the ambushers, though not without some injuries of their own. Yaervan and Jax both suffered from stab wounds, though neither was yet unable to continue.

Heading east from the southern end of the hall, the party climbed a flight of stairs leading to an octagonal room on the map. At the top of the stairs, Yaervan spotted a hidden door, and determined that it could be opened by turning a torch sconce. However, he turned it the wrong way...and the landing at the top of the stairs flipped up, sending him tumbling down the stairs and back down to the hall. Bruised and battered, he tried again, and this time was successful in opening the door. Inside, they found the remains of an eight-foot long green worm with multiple tentacles and legs. Investigating the body, they found two small coffers had been hidden inside, containing some treasure. Finding little else of value, they continued on toward the octagonal room.

This room turned out to be a bathing chamber, with a steady bubbling of water pouring into a large basin. Hanging above the bath was a mass of webs and a webbed corpse hanging down. Investigating it, Jax peered into the water, only to be suddenly attacked by a huge spider that leapt, completely dry, out of the tub. Before he could react, the spider had bitten into him, and he felt the deadly poison coursing through his veins. His companions immediately went to his rescue, striking down the spider as swiftly as possible, but it was too late; the spider had done its work. In desperation, Ruphus prayed to Diulanna for succor, and force-fed some vile-tasting herbs to the paladin.

The herbs' effect was swift, and Jax soon coughed up both blood and mucus. Terribly weak and barely alive, the paladin survived only through the judicious application of one of their few remaining healing potions. Unable to do anything else and needing rest, the party brought Jax to the room with the illusory forest, where they camped out and gave Ruphus a chance to tend to the paladin's needs.

To be continued...

Episode 3: Jzadirune's Darkness

Back to the game today, and here's what went down:

As they looked around the room full of glass shards, Arthur Morgan spotted the outline of a door on one of the walls. Curious, he went to examine it. A shouted warning from Ruphus warned him, and he ducked aside as a nearly-invisible creature cloaked in shadows tried to stab him from behind. A second, smaller creature also attacked, and the party found themselves hard-pressed against these foes, enemies that were almost impossible to see and just as difficult to hit. The battle was fierce, but ended with a victory as the two creatures of darkness fell beneath their blades. On the larger creature's body, they found a couple of unidentified potions, as well as some coins...and another key to the gear doors (this one a 'D').

After the battle was over, the party investigated the strange door, eventually finding the way to open it and discovering a small treasure hoard. A suit of gnomish armor filled with silver coins, and an urn with a mix of coins and jewelry was their reward, the first significant treasure they had found thus far.

They continued exploring northward, finding an empty forge before exploring a new section. They came upon a makeshift wall, not impossible to break down but sturdy and solid. After a few minutes' effort, they came to a large room set up like a clockwork factory. A bright light hung suspended in the ceiling, and two balconies beckoned them onward. Jax the paladin went up one flight of stairs, and was rewarded for his efforts by being attacked by a horrible, floating jellyfish-like creature with a huge beak. The creature's tentacles stung him, but he shook off the momentary paralysis and tried to fight back despite his wounds. The rest of the group attacked with missile weapons, trying to buy time for Jax to escape. Unfortunately, he was unable to do so in time, and the creature hungrily bit into his flesh.

All seemed lost, but Gandolf launched a magic missile at the creature, and a well-placed arrow from Arthur Morgan's bow caught the creature right between the eyes. Rushing to the fallen paladin's aid, the elf poured a potion of healing down his throat, reviving him before his soul had departed this mortal coil.

Cautiously, they continued to explore the room, and Alexandria discovered the bones of a fallen creature wearing a torn and tattered cloak; a 'short one' that had fallen victim to the creature. It carried little of value, and no clues as to the whereabouts of the missing children. Gathering themselves, the party tried the double doors to the south, which opened easily at their touch. This led them to an atrium of some sort, with the name of the place emblazoned in a mosaic on the ground: Jzadirune.

Across the room was another door, which they easily opened. On the other side, however, Yaervan found himself in a precarious position as the floor suddenly fell beneath him. Only his quick reflexes saved him from falling into a pit. The door of the pit slammed shut, and the party heard the sound of gears shifting and turning beneath their feet. They carefully but quickly picked their way across before the grinding stopped. At the end of the corridor they found another door, this one leading back to the very first room at the base of the stairs leading to Keygan Ghelve's home.

Taking stock of the situation, the party recognized that they had not yet explored the western half of the complex. They headed west down the corridor, and came to a hallway with a series of gear doors, two of which they were able to open with the keys they had discovered. They found nothing of interest or value in these abandoned bedrooms, however. As they approached the southern end of the corridor, the gnome Erf, leading the way, felt the floor suddenly shift under his feet. His desperate lunge for safety and Jax's attempt to grab him and pull him out of harm's way both failed, and the gnome found himself lying at the bottom of a pit with spiked walls, next to a translucent body that had been repeatedly impaled.

Recognizing this sort of trap, he braced himself for what was about to happen. Sure enough, he heard the rumbling of gears even as his companions tried to open the door to free him. As the pit began to tilt, threatening to impale Erf on the spikes, he deftly placed his body in the best position to avoid the deadly spikes. To his own amazement, he succeeded, and as the pit began to tilt back, Jax and Yaervan were finally able to wrench open the trap door. Alexandria lowered a rope, and the terrified gnome was pulled to safety.

To be continued...

Dear Doctor: Enterprise Retrospective

Ah, here we go...the first really controversial episode of Enterprise, the one that introduces the concept of the Prime Directive. Here's the synopsis, per Wikipedia:

Doctor Phlox receives a letter from his Interspecies Medical Exchange counterpart, Doctor Jeremy Lucas, who is serving a term on Denobula. He begins to compose a letter back, describing his experiences with the crew, and the ways in which humans are different. Meanwhile, on the Bridge, the crew are discussing a pre-warp vessel they have encountered. The alien they speak with, a Valakian, begs them to assist with a medical emergency their species is facing. Sub-Commander T'Pol reveals that the Vulcans are unaware of the species, but she agrees with Captain Jonathan Archer to help them. Phlox continues his letter, describing the challenges of treating the disease – with over fifty million lives at stake.

Enterprise arrives at the Valakian homeworld, where they are met by Esaak, the Valakian director of a clinic, and Larr, a Menk orderly. T'Pol, Phlox, Archer, and Ensign Hoshi Sato make a tour of the medical facility. Sato discovers that there is a second lesser-evolved yet unaffected race, the Menk, who live alongside the Valakians. Phlox makes the startling discovery that the Valakians are slowly dying out, not from an easily curable medical condition, but because of a genetic disease which is experiencing an accelerated rate of mutation. He also believes that the answer to a cure may lie in the Menk.

Archer, meanwhile, is debating whether to provide the Valakians with Warp drive, ultimately deciding against it. Upon further investigation, Phlox learns that the Valakians suffer from the illness because their gene pool has reached a "dead end" and that the Menk are undergoing an "awakening process." He also finds that the Valakians have been stifling and underestimating the Menk. He has found a cure, but does not believe it would be ethical to administer. Archer considers how a "Prime Directive" would be helpful, and provides the Valakians with medicine that will diminish the symptoms for a decade, anticipating the Menks' natural evolution and new levels of understanding between them.

****************

Okay...this one is tough. The debate about this episode boils down to this: Did the Enterprise crew, particularly Dr. Phlox, do the right thing in basically leaving the Valakians to die off and be replaced by the Menk? For some, the answer is yes; for me, I would say no. Saying that the Valakians are going to die off anyway because of evolution doesn't preclude the necessity of helping them in the here and now. More to the point, there is no 'Prime Directive' at this point in the Star Trek universe; Archer even laments that there isn't one, meaning he has to make the decision on his own.

And he made the wrong one.

It's fine to theorize about future genetic evolution and such, but in the here and now of the Valakians, millions of them are dying, and Phlox found a cure. And Archer, who in the second episode, Fight or Flight, tells T'Pol that humans have developed of code of behavior, and that code included helping people in need. Suddenly, he's looking for a way out of following that code and condemning an entire species to a slow, painful, genetic death and asserting that it's not humanity's problem. I have a really hard time accepting that, and I know I'm not the only one; this episode was panned and brutally reviewed by several online reviewers when it came out.

I'm not giving this one a numeric ranking; as a stand-alone story, it is pretty good for the most part, right up until the end. And yes, the seeds of the Prime Directive are sown here, but the important thing to remember about the PD is that sometimes it needs to be broken. And if it had existed in this time frame, this was one of those times.

Detroit Rock City

I've never talked about sports on this blog, although I've been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. I fell away from pro sports for a few years due to the infusion of political activism into what was supposed to be escapist entertainment.

I follow a few teams, though. For hockey, of course it's the Montreal Canadiens, the greatest franchise in the sport's history. I grew up in Eastern Canada, and for the first decade of my life the Hockey Night in Canada feature was almost always Montreal. I moved to Ontario in the early 1980s, where suddenly I was exposed to the Maple Leafs all the time. And for those who remember, the Leafs in the 1980s absolutely SUCKED. And I couldn't see the team I wanted to watch, which made things even worse.

In baseball, I'm still a die-hard Montreal Expos fan, but they're not in the league anymore. So, it's the Blue Jays. And it's been a frustrating few years of playoff futility after sky-high expectations.

I don't follow basketball or soccer; for the World Cup, obviously I cheer on Canada, and if the Raptors are doing really well I might catch a few highlights, but basketball really isn't my thing.

Then, there's football...

There are two pro leagues for me to follow: The CFL, and the NFL. In the CFL, I'm going to cheer for either the Montreal Alouettes (who just won the Grey Cup!), or the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. If they're playing each other, it's the Alouettes. The first Grey Cup I remember watching starred Montreal and Edmonton, and it was a blowout (41-6, if I recall correctly), but I spent a few years living in Hamilton and got to catch a few games at the old Ivor Wynne Stadium, so the Ticats are a soft-spot for me.

Then there's the NFL. For the longest time, I was a Steelers fan (and I absolutely loved the Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl), but after moving to Wallaceburg to be with my Honeybunny, I got a steady dose of the Detroit Lions on the radio, and I started following them quite a bit. I was there for the 0-16 season and the playoff heartbreaks (and all the ridiculous ref calls that cost the Lions at least a dozen games over the years), and I was intrigued at the hiring of the new regime of Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell.

And now, after decades of futility and one playoff win in 65 years, the Lions are one win away from making it to their first-ever Super Bowl. We don't have cable or satellite, so I can't watch the games live (I'm not paying for streaming services either), but I do listen to them on radio broadcasts or through YouTubers streaming the game (shout-out to Mr. Tom Grossi of Packast, who is streaming all the games this year). I listened to the Lions-Bucs game yesterday, and while it wasn't quite the same as listening to a radio broadcast, it was exciting enough, and the highlights afterward were sweet to see.

The Lions are a team that has been snake-bitten for decades, and now they are finally overcoming the stigma of being the 'Same Old Lions' that has plagued them for longer than I've been alive. For perspective, Toronto Maple Leafs fans pining for their twelfth Stanley Cup after 55 years of waiting need to remember that the Lions' last championship was ten years earlier (1957). That city has been waiting a LONG time for this, and it's great to see.

Here's wishing the Lions the best in the NFC Championship game, and hopefully they can stun the San Francisco 49ers and do what Detroit's been dying to see for decades.

An Ultimate Collection

Oh, yeah...

I completed this collection today; I have all four boxed sets of the James Bond Ultimate Edition with all 20 pre-Craig movies. I might add Casino Royale to the collection, but that's the only Craig movie I'm interested in. But this...this is a sweet, sweet set. Yes, they're DVDs, not Blu-Rays, but they're still great to have in hardcopy.

The only real issue with the set is that they aren't in chronological order; each set is a mixed bag with at least three different Bonds in it. I can see the logic; get one box, get a taste of multiple actors in the role. But since it's my collection now, I'm going to sort them out in the proper viewing order, because that is how I roll.

All four sets have the full set of discs and booklets, which is nice. They're all in good shape, so now it's just a matter of putting them up on the shelf all pretty-like.

And yes, Dalton is still my favorite Bond, and if you disagree with me, you're wrong. Connery was cool, Moore was urbane, Lazenby was...well, he was there, and Brosnan was the modern, suave Bond. But Dalton's Bond was a beast, a no-nonsense guy who truly made me believe that he was as deadly as a man could be, and while all of the Bonds were badasses when they needed to be, if Dalton's Bond came up to me and informed me in a quiet voice that I had overdue library books, I would not only pay the fine on the spot and apologize profusely, I would return a couple of other books along with them just to be safe. Because I don't ever want that man to be mad at me.

These Little Piggies...

...are growing, slowly. Very slowly; it's really, really cold out, so they're using a lot of energy to stay warm rather than channel it into growth. But I noticed that they are a wee bit bigger today, so there's hope. Thankfully, they are in the barn where the wind isn't an issue, so it's just cold, not biting. Delilah is being an extra-good mama to the piglets, which is good. She's getting all the treats I can get her, whether it be produce scraps from the grocery store, leftovers from our fridge, whatever.

The problem, of course, is that we didn't separate the happy couple back in September, which is when they were old enough to recognize that there were differences between boars and sows, and began exploring those differences. Since pigs have a gestation period of 3-3-3 (3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days) that means that Samson got his freak on around mid-September. So, we get the joys of trying to raise six piglets in a cold winter in an unheated barn. Yay.

They aren't on solids yet, so they're just feeding off of Delilah for now. We'll work them up to drinking water and eating mash, but for now we're going to let Delilah do the Mama thing. Like I said, she's good at it. Thankfully.

Not much else to say today; the chickens are still laying lots of eggs, which is a nice bonus in the winter. The trick is figuring out where the heck they're laying, and finding them before they freeze and crack. Winter farming in PEI is no joke.

Hopefully, there will be more to talk about tomorrow, but it's late.

Episode 2: Jzadirune (continued)

After the piggie detour, we're back to the game recap from the weekend.

The party entered the abandoned kitchen, where after some brief exploring they were once again ambushed by a couple of camouflaged beasties. These were the 'short ones' described by Keygan, and they were very elusive and difficult to hit. Alexandria again did the lion's share, getting through the shadowy defenses and crushing the first of the short, hooved monsters. Yaervan was able to finish off the second one, his sword just finding its way into the monster's gullet.

After the fight, the party explored the room. Erf got curious about the cabinet in the corner, and discovered that curiosity not only killed the cat, it also almost killed the gnome. The cabinet, decrepit and barely standing, didn't survive having the door opened, and the contents crashed down. Erf was able to avoid the worst of the accident, but it was close. As a reward, he found a small device with a gnomish rune on it, and quickly determined that it was a key to the gear doors. This one had a 'Z' on it, and he hung onto it for later.

The room had a single gear door, marked with an 'E' rune, and Erf was able to pick the lock and slide the door open. He walked out into the main dining hall, now abandoned and mostly destroyed by the new tenants. Jax followed him, and was nearly burned to death by the jets of fire that suddenly filled the doorway as he passed by. Realizing that Erf, being a gnome, was likely to be the only one unaffected, the rest of the party rushed through the door, one at a time, as fast as they could. Only Arthur was too slow to avoid the jets, though it was only a minor burn compared to what Jax had suffered.

The dining hall had four doors, two on either side, and a pair of archways, one at each end of the long hall. The other three doors were a 'J', a 'U', and a 'Z'. Eagerly, Erf tried the small key, and it worked as the 'Z' door slid open with no issues, and no traps. Unfortunately, all they found was an abandoned pantry with some old, molding bread and some dried, worthless herbs. Still, the key worked, so Erf kept it close.

Unwilling to risk the other gear doors yet, they searched the archway to the south, where they found more gear doors ('A' and 'R', and a couple of 'D's at the ends. Unable to unlock any of them, the party returned to the dining hall, where Erf tried the 'U' door, and finally the 'J' door, which he was able to unlock. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to disarm the trap, which shot some corrosive acid at them. If you've ever seen the Mummy (Brendan Fraser, not Tom Cruise), you'll remember the salt acid trap in the sarcophagus. Same thing, and this took down both Erf and Jax, wounding some of the other party members as well. The gnome and the paladin were pulled to safety, and the party retreated to the abandoned pantry, closing the door behind them.

Having expended his healing on the party earlier, Ruphus was able to do very little for the dying party members, until Arthur remembered the healing potions that Jenya had given them before they embarked on the mission. Jax was able to drink his on his own, while Yaervan and Alexandria forced the gnome's potion down his throat. It was enough for them to both recover, and the party resolved to rest and recuperate their spells and resources in the safety of the pantry.

After the magic-users recovered their spells, the party once again went back to the dining hall, where they saw the 'J' door had closed on its own. Unwilling to risk it, they tried the archway to the north. Here they found something very unexpected in an underground gnomish enclave: A room that looked like an outdoor forest, complete with filtered sunlight from the ceiling and the sound of birds. Yaervan suffered flashbacks to a past life and had a bit of a panic attack.* Erf reminded the party that this was a gnomish enclave, and gnomes are good at illusions, and they moved through the forest. They found another gear door (another 'D'), and after a failed attempt to open this one, they found the descending staircase at the north end of the room and continued on.

When they reached the bottom, they saw an empty room with a passage and a couple of the dug-out tunnels. As they entered, they heard a voice that shouted 'Attack the intruders!' in Gnomish. Suddenly, a monstrous contraption emerged out of nowhere that looked like a blacksmith's nightmare. Made of metal and with two deadly-looking pincers on the end of stubby arms, it advanced on the party.

Thinking quickly, Erf shouted out an order of his own, which caused the apparition to halt before it could attack them. After some experimenting, Erf recognized it as an automaton, a gnomish device that, while it wasn't technically alive, could still move and accomplish tasks if ordered by someone who could speak Gnomish. It was limited in what it could do and had no ability to communicate with them, so they settled for ordering it to return to wherever it came from, and it turned around and walked away, only to vanish as suddenly as it had appeared. Erf followed, and also disappeared from view even as he saw the automaton stop and assume a guarding position. The automaton was inside an invisibility sphere of some sort, as was anyone who entered it.

At the end of the passage, they found another 'J' door, which they avoided. Instead, they went down one of the tunnels leading out of the automaton room, and found themselves in another room behind the 'J' door. This was a glass workshop of some sort, with shards everywhere and tables rearranged haphazardly around the room with no discernible pattern. Seeing nothing else in the room, they moved in to explore it more carefully, unaware of the danger that was hiding from them almost in plain sight...

To be continued next weekend...

* To find out why, check out my book on Amazon, The Devil's Playground, which my son read and enjoyed (but also made him really scared of underground forest rooms).

So Far, So Good...

After our unexpected additions to our animal farm yesterday, we kept a pretty close eye on the piglets today. We tried to build a crush rail to prevent the risk of Delilah squashing any of her babies, but the logistics of it didn't work. If we'd had some warning and time to build it earlier, it would have been fine. But as it is, we're pretty much stuck with things as they are, and we're going to have to hope and pray that she is extra-careful. So far, she has been. So, it's going to be more monitoring for the next little while, to see if the piggies can survive. We've got an extra heat lamp over them now, but it's not doing much more than cutting the edge off the cold.

Unfortunately, we found two more dead piglets this morning. Not from the six; all of them are still okay. But she gave birth to ten, not eight, so we lost four before we even knew they were there. These two are in a tough place to reach, but we'll have to get them out tomorrow to avoid any risk of disease. With the cold, the bodies are definitely frozen, and I'd rather not spend any more words or thoughts on that topic tonight.

We also had a fun little time when the Kitchen Goddess went to to the vet to pick up some iron supplements for them. We had to inject the piglets, and Delilah was not happy with us as the piglets squealed and screamed at the unfamiliar touch. Two of them had a rough reaction, and were struggling; we thought one of them was paralyzed because it couldn't stand up. When it looked like Delilah was going to write them off because they wouldn't follow her to the warm spot, my wife and I brought the two piglets into the house to see if they could calm down, get warm, and stop squealing. Eventually, they did, and we debated whether or not they would be welcomed back into Mama's loving embrace. Since these are pigs and not birds, we gave it a try. And it worked; the piglets are behaving normally, and Delilah is caring for them again. Crisis averted; we thought we might have to separate them permanently, which would have meant they would be pets, because my wife is constitutionally incapable of holding a small animal without instantly falling in love with it and wanting to keep it. We've gotten two dogs and countless chickens that way.

So, here's hoping and praying that they make it through the night, and tomorrow is a fresh start with more opportunities to help them get through the cold. It sucks, and the timing couldn't have been much worse, but it is what it is. God's got this, and we'll trust in Him.

Unexpected II: Not an Enterprise Retrospective

So, I was planning to post the rest of the Shackled City recap from yesterday's session, but we have some breaking news from the Sprigg farm. This morning, I went to feed the animals like I do every day. There were 53 chickens, 3 rabbits, and 2 pigs. This afternoon, I went out to feed the animals like I do every day. There were 53 chickens, 3 rabbits, and 8 pigs.

Say what?!

This was Samson and Delilah back in June after we put them outside in their pen. Below we see Samson and Delilah's current situation this afternoon in the barn pen:

Yeah, that's six little piggies cuddling up to Mama. She was expecting, but we weren't. That was a bit of a panic moment, because it's the middle of January. Thankfully, today was a relatively warm day (above zero, at least), which is a relief considering there's a polar vortex going on in the rest of the continent. PEI is always behind the times.

We set up a heat lamp tonight since the temperature is dropping, which is the reason for the odd lighting in this picture and the next one. Assuming the babies all survive the night, we'll be building a mini-wall to keep Mama from crushing them while they can still get the heat.

Sadly, Delilah actually had eight babies, but two of the boys were already dead when I found the new family. I'm told that's pretty normal for a first litter, especially since Delilah is still pretty young; she's not even a year old now. Still, it sucks to lose them.

The toughest part of the day was getting Samson to move outside and then blocking the doorway so he can't put the babies at risk. We'll be doing some more work to separate them more thoroughly going forward, although for now just keeping him outside will have to do until we can get something done in the spring for a more permanent solution.

It's ironic, because we were talking about getting six piglets to raise for meat while we waited for Samson and Delilah to do their business. Well, God has a sense of humor, because there are six piggies sitting in our barn now. It takes about a year for them to grow up to butchering size. We're debating whether to sell some of them young and raise the rest for meat. We'll have to consider it carefully, although we do have some time.

And yes, these are the only pigs we have now; the other three (including Bob) are freezer-bait and have been there since November. It's the circle of life, farm-style.

The Shackled City, Episode 2: Into Jzadirune

Okay, so we had our second session today. I printed out copies of the 'spellbooks' for the magic-users and illusionist, so they know exactly what spells they have available to them. I also printed out a list of suggested names for the region, and asked everyone to pick a name (or make one up) and put it on their sheet. As a result, we have the following PCs (still all 1st level, of course):

Alexandria Taskerhill, human fighter
Jax Deveron, human paladin
Arthur Morgan, elf fighter/magic-user (spells are charm person, find familiar, read magic, and spider climb)
Yaervan Amazanth, half-elf fighter (bard-to-be)
Erf Lund, gnome illusionist/thief (spells are audible glamer, color spray, and detect invisibility)
Gandolf, human magic-user (spells are detect magic, jump, magic missile, and read magic)

They are also accompanied by Ruphus Laro, 2nd-level cleric of the Church of Diulanna. Gandolf's player wasn't present, so he became a DM-run NPC for the adventure.

And now, the story continues...

Yaervan cried out in surprise and pain as a heavy weight struck him from above, and he felt the sharp pain of a sword in his side. Struggling with the nearly-invisible assailant, he shoved hard and threw his attacker into a wall. Arthur, the only other party member in the room, stabbed out with the butt of his spear and felt the satisfying weight of battered flesh and bones as he pinned the attacker against the wall.

Outside in the shop entrance, Keygan began sobbing and gibbering in terror as the sounds of combat came through the heavy black curtain. Jax and Erf immediately ran to help their companions, while Alexandria, Ruphus and Gandolf stayed to watch over the hysterical gnome. They saw Yaervan swordfighting with a nearly-unseen opponent, while Arthur tried to position himself to stab the enemy properly with his spear. Before Erf could bring a spell to mind, Yaeravn and Jax had dispatched the creature as the paladin's bardiche swiped its head off.

Stunned, the party examined the creature's body. Hairless, genderless, and with skin that seemed to change to blend in with its surroundings, it remained a mystery to their untrained eyes. Keygan identified it only as a 'tall one', and after some prodding, finally spilled the beans to his new friend, Arthur (who had cast a charm person on him in the previous session) and Jax, who is just that friendly and easy to talk to (paladin with an 18 Charisma, everybody). The party soon learned the following information:

The 'tall ones' had surprised him and his nephew Kerren late at night about three months ago, taking Kerren prisoner and somehow turning him into a rat. They forced the locksmith to make skeleton keys for them, and have used his shop as an entry point into the city from the abandoned gnomish enclave of Jzadirune. The only remaining entrance to the surface is here in Keygan's shop, although he has not been down there since the place was abandoned 175 years ago. Now, he has been down only to the very first room below, where the 'short ones' bring his nephew in rat-form in a small cage to ensure Keygan's continued co-operation.

There are also 'short ones' that look like deformed gnomes with soft black hooves and who go about in the city on their own. Both the 'tall ones' and 'short ones' carry out the kidnappings, bringing them through the shop late at night. Keygan has never seen them bringing the victims, but he has heard them, and he has felt helpless to do anything for fear they would kill Kerren.

Jzadirune was abandoned long ago when a strange disease called the Vanishing swept through the enclave, causing its victims to slowly turn translucent and eventually disappear. Jzadirune is protected by a number of trapped doors that only the gnomes could safely open, though Keygan doesn't know how to do so himself. He did provide them with an old, worn map of the enclave, which they looked over before descending through the secret door. Before leaving, Ruphus told Keygan to go to the Church of Diulanna and speak with Jenya before turning himself in to the town guard.

The seven adventurers slowly descended into the abandoned enclave. There they found an empty entrance hall, and saw the first of the strange doors that looked like gears. If you've ever seen Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, that's pretty much what these doors look like. One of the doors was jammed open, and had large teeth surrounding the central wheel. Both doors had a rune inscribed on them: The closed door had the gnomish rune for 'J', the jammed door an 'A'. Being the only gnome in the party, Erf took the lead and went through the jammed door into a old barracks room. There was a glowing rod on the floor, and two tunnels that didn't appear on the map. Rubble was piled up before both tunnel entrances, suggesting that they were a recent addition to the complex.

The others followed, although Jax and Yaervan stayed behind. Erf, Arthur, Gandolf, and Alexandria squeezed through, and after Alexandria had followed the others, she was suddenly attacked by two more of the near-invisible 'tall ones'. Fortunately, some sixth sense warned her (I literally rolled a 6 on the surprise die) in time, and she was able to interpose her shield to stop the first blow. The second did get through, though without the devastating effect of the intended backstab. Alexandria, being an expert in the art of the battleaxe, immediately struck back, although the enemy's camouflage made it very difficult to see well enough to fight them effectively.

Erf, unable to cast his color spray without risking catching his ally in the spell, tried to come to her aid with a dagger. Unfortunately, he tripped on the glowing rod and dropped his dagger, which skittered along the floor under a bed. Meanwhile, Arthur struck out at one of the attackers, nicking it with his spear-tip. Gandolf simply spoke a few words of power, and a glowing bolt of energy struck the second creature, knocking it back.

The two creatures attempted to run, but by this time Jax had entered and recognized the situation well enough to strike back, killing the already-damaged 'tall one' with a swipe of his bardiche. Alexandria, meanwhile, adjusted her attack and killed the second creature with a single blow, thus preventing them from escaping and warning the complex of their presence.

There were two exit tunnels, about five feet in diameter. They chose the eastern one to explore. It led them quite a distance before branching off to the north and south. After a quick consultation, they went south. Erf was the only one able to walk upright as the rest were forced to slightly duck to get through the short tunnels. They followed the southern tunnel until it opened up into an abandoned kitchen.

To be continued...

Feeding the Critters

It turns out that feeding a bunch of farm animals gets expensive when you buy bags of feed. At almost $30/bag, it adds up in a big hurry, particularly when you have a lot of animals. Right now we have over fifty chickens, and they eat a lot. Particularly in the winter, when there isn't much for them to forage.

Fortunately, there are bulk options, and that's what we'll be doing next year. Bulk feed is a lot cheaper, averaging out to the equivalent of about $4 per bag, a significant savings. And since we plan to do a much larger meat chicken flock this summer, that is going to be a very important shift in costs. Because meat birds eat one hell of a lot of food, especially the kind we get (Cornish Cross). They grow to about six  to seven pounds in about three months, and they don't do it by exercising and taking steroids.

The nice thing about buying someone else's old farm is that it comes with a silo to store all this grain. We can expect to fit about ten tons in the silo, which is roughly $1,000 or so. It's hefty, but considering the amount we'd have to pay for the equivalent bags? Yeah, that's not a hard call to make.

Maybe we can even afford to get some turkeys this year as well. That would be fun.

Silent Enemy: Enterprise Retrospective

Here we go with another episode of Enterprise, this one the premiere episode to the second half of Season One. We begin, as usual, with the plot recap from Wikipedia:

In September 2151, while deploying subspace amplifiers to improve their ability to communicate with Starfleet, Enterprise is approached by an alien vessel. Captain Archer hails them, but the vessel returns to warp. He wonders why: Ensign Sato points out that the Universal Translator is far from perfect; and Sub-Commander T'Pol says that some species have motives that cannot be understood in human terms. Soon, the mysterious ship returns and scans Enterprise, sending a high pitched screech through the com systems, and firing on them before again jumping to warp.

Archer notes that Enterprise is now encountering more aggressive species than anticipated, and sets course for Earth so that Jupiter Station can finish the weapons refit. Commander Tucker and Reed ask to be allowed to complete the work themselves, but Archer disagrees, though he gives them permission to begin the procedure. While doing so, the alien ship returns and disables Enterprise's warp drive and main power. Strange alien bipeds then board the ship, and assault two crew-members. They return to their ship, damaging a warp nacelle before departing again. Mayweather suggests contacting the Vulcan High Command for help, but both subspace amplifiers have been destroyed.

Two days later, Enterprise locates an uninhabited planet for a weapons test, which produces a blast yield 10 times the expected output, due to an unexpected surge. T'Pol traces the anomalous reading to Launch Bay 2, to a device tapped into internal sensors and comm channels. Archer then sends the aliens a message: he does not want a fight but will protect his ship by any means necessary. With that, he destroys the device. T'Pol detects the alien vessel again, which uses a re-edited version of Archer's earlier message to demand surrender. After the new cannons are ineffective against their attacker, Archer asks if Reed can intentionally repeat the previous overload of the cannons. Reed complies and damages the alien vessel, knocking out their shields. Reed follows up with two torpedoes before the aliens depart.

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There's a subplot in here about Hoshi trying to find a way to surprise Reed for his birthday, but it seems a bit out of place considering the nature of the ship's crisis. Surely the comm officer and Best Linguist in the Galaxy should be focusing her time more on figuring out how to communicate with these strange aliens and find out what the heck they're up to. Still, it does provide a bit of character development for Reed, although it's more like a 'negative' character development, in that we find out that he really doesn't have much of a character. No friends, no special somebody in his life, even his own family doesn't know what he particularly likes. He is a cipher, outside of his duties on board. She eventually finds out through Phlox and some clandestine medical records research, and in the end Reed gets his favorite cake: Pineapple.

As for the main plot, I really liked it. Enterprise is traipsing around in some very dangerous territory, totally on their own with no chance of calling for timely help from anyone. That premise is starkly portrayed here, as the aliens clearly outmatch the Enterprise. This isn't the first time this has happened, either; the second episode, Fight or Flight, had a similar premise, although at least then they had the Axanar to help them out of a jam. This time, the Enterprise crew are on their own.

The aliens are suitably mysterious, never revealing anything about themselves, and they are never seen again after this episode. The tension mounts as Enterprise tries to find a way out of this mess, their communications buoys are destroyed, their weapons are ineffective, and the aliens finally use their own message against them to order Archer to surrender.

Malcolm might suck at interpersonal relationships, but he's an expert at figuring out new ways to blow things up. He and the engineering team manage to assemble the first of the shipboard phase cannons rather than leave it for drydock workers to install, and it works even better than they had planned. In the end, Enterprise gets to drive off the aliens and resume its mission of exploration. And Reed gets cake.

Overall, I like the episode. Chronologically, it actually happens before the previous episode, Cold Front, dated September 1st, 2051 (Cold Front was dated September 12th), and I think this one would have made a better mid-season finale than the prior one. But this one doesn't talk about the Temporal Cold War, which made it unfeasible for what they were trying to do with the series. Anyway, I'll give this one an 8 out of 10 for the creep factor, the genuine alien-ness of the antagonists, and I even like the loose ends: We never find out why these aliens were doing this, which is fine. We aren't always going to understand the rest of the galaxy, and now is as good a time as any to learn that lesson.

If outer space action gets your juices flowing, you might want to check out my own foray into space opera science fiction, Bard Conley and his Adventures Across the Solar System. It's pulpy, it's fun, and there are lots of explosions. Available now in ebook or paperback at an Amazon website near you.

Epic Fantasy is Derivative

That's a strong statement, I know. But it's true; the vast majority of epic fantasy published in my lifetime falls into two categories: Tolkien derivative, or (since the turn of the century) Rowling derivative. It's unfortunate, because fantasy comes in a lot of different flavors than epic trilogies. Some of the best fantasy ever written is contained in books that by today's standards aren't long enough for a prologue. Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson, for example, is only 167 pages, and it's got more action, excitement, and fantasy than entire bookshelves of modern fantasy writing.

Tolkien was breaking new ground in fantasy fiction when he wrote The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. First, the heroes weren't humans; he had elves, dwarves, and hobbits running around taking up lots of screen time, and the elves and dwarves weren't anything like the ones from Norse mythology. Second, his heroes didn't work alone; they worked in large groups (fifteen or nine), working together to overcome obstacles and complications in their quests. Third, his story was spread over three books rather than being self-contained in a single volume as most fantasy writing was. The seminal Barsoom books of Edgar Rice Burroughs were all self-contained, where you could stop the story at the end of any book (although there are cliffhangers sometimes), and the next book would be another self-contained story. But Tolkien was writing something massive, and it took three whole books to get it all in.

The Hobbit was published in 1937, and the Lord of the Rings in the mid-1950s (one volume a year). And while it was widely recognized as an epic story and worthy of inclusion in any fantasy reading list, it was only one example of the genre. Other examples included Lovecraft, C.A. Smith, Burroughs, Merrit, Howard's Conan, Lieber's Lankhmar stories, Dunsany's whimsical tales, Fletcher Pratt, L. Sprague de Camp, and dozens of other writers with their own unique visions of what fantasy could be.

So, what happened? Well, in 1977 Terry Brooks released his own version of Lord of the Rings, The Sword of Shannara. In this story, a mysterious sorcerer (the druid Allanon) takes an unlikely commoner on an epic quest, with a motley group of companions including an elf and a dwarf. In Shannara, elves and dwarves were good friends, which was one of the few things that distinguished the Four Lands from Middle-Earth. The main hero gets separated from his companions and has to complete the quest on his own, while his companions fight an epic battle to buy him some time. It was an obvious and blatant pastiche (or, more unkindly, a total rip-off) of Lord of the Rings.

And it was a smash success, selling a whole lot of copies as people ate it up with a spoon. I admit, I was one of them; I read Shannara before I read LOTR (out of order, too; I read Elfstones first and had no clue about some of the characters), and I enjoyed it. It was one of the first fantasy novels I had read, outside of younger fare such as the Oz books, or Greek mythology.

So, with the near-instant success of Shannara, suddenly publishers saw epic fantasy as the gateway to big profits. After all, when someone is willing to buy three books to get the whole story, that's three times as much money in the bank account. Shannara and the really awful Thomas Covenant books were the gateway, and the flood began by the early 1980s. The other fantasy genres vanished almost overnight, except in reprint compilations and the like.

For my generation, LOTR and its copycats WERE fantasy literature. Dungeons & Dragons, we all thought, was based almost solely on LOTR, because that's all we knew. The legendary Appendix N? Never heard of it. Tolkien was the ur-text, and there was nothing else.

Thankfully, I found out later in life that yes, there are other fantasy books, and those are the ones that inspired the world's greatest game. Tolkien's trappings (non-human protagonists, hobbits/halflings, orcs, epic underground complexes, etc.) were cool, but they were only a part of the game. Gandalf certainly didn't read like a D&D magic-user; he hardly ever cast any spells, he used a sword, he spent a good chunk of the books dead (but got better)...it just didn't mesh well. But we didn't notice, because we didn't know about the alternatives.

As time went on, the trilogies became much longer. The Wheel of Time was the most ridiculous, spanning fourteen volumes by the time it was finished by another author, since the first one didn't live long enough to complete it. It started off well, but by the fifth or sixth volume it was a slog. I finished it through sheer tenacity, but it's not something I'm ever going to read again. Game of Thrones was unreadable, and apparently it will never be finished. I can't say I'm disappointed. Or surprised.

Now, though, independent writers have rediscovered the joys of self-contained stories. Shorter volumes at an affordable price that can be just as entertaining as the multi-volume epics. I happen to have some of this very kind of book available at Amazon right now. Check it out, and see how 'short' doesn't mean the story is lacking.

Winter is Coming...

Technically, it's already here, but we're getting a real treat tomorrow: Gale-force winds with a snowstorm. Yay. I can't wait.

So, today was a day for preparing. My son and I put some plastic and plywood over the chicken coop, hoping to give the chickens a fair chance. We only got three sides fully covered; the uncovered side is the one with the least wind exposure, so here's hoping it works. We've also got the generator ready to go, and plenty of snacks ready. And blankets. Warm, fuzzy blankets.

There's not much else to say, really; winter storms tend to suck, and I'm not really looking forward to it. Hopefully we still have power tomorrow; if not, then I guess I won't be blogging. We'll see.

Cold Front: Enterprise Retrospective

Yes, I still have a lot of these episodes to review. I actually got the first season on Blu-Ray for Christmas, which is nice. Three more seasons to go...

So, Cold Front was the 'mid-season finale' (although they weren't called that back in 2001) for the first season of Enterprise, and it brought back the Temporal Cold War that was introduced in the pilot, Broken Bow. It wasn't very popular with fans, adding an unnecessary complication to the prequel series and one that obvious never reappeared in any other Star Trek show. But it's here, and we have to deal with it.

Here's the plot recap from Wikipedia:

Enterprise investigates a stellar nursery with several ships inside. Hailing one, they encounter a group on a pilgrimage to the Great Plume of Agosoria. Every eleven years, one of the protostars emits a neutron blast that the pilgrims consider a sacred event. Captain Archer invites the pilgrims to visit Enterprise. In Engineering, Commander Tucker explains the Warp 5 engine to the pilgrims. One alien discreetly disconnects an antimatter junction, and his arm morphs, revealing him as Suliban.

As Enterprise tries to go around a plasma storm, a bolt strikes the ship and causes an antimatter cascade that almost reaches the reactor, but is stopped by the disconnected junction. Tucker detects the sabotage in the junction, but does not suspect any of the crew. Crewman Daniels informs Archer that he believes one of the pilgrims is Silik, the Suliban whom Archer previously encountered. In his quarters, Daniels tells Archer he is not Starfleet but from the 31st century, commenting that the people who command Silik in the Temporal Cold War are from an earlier century. He comments that he has been sent to capture him, and asks for permission to tie his tracking technology into the ship's internal sensors.

Silik appears to Archer in his quarters and claims that Daniels' group was responsible for the antimatter cascade, and that the Temporal Accord is a lie. In Engineering, Daniels detects Suliban bio-signs, but is surprised and vaporized by Silik. T'Pol and Tucker summon Doctor Phlox to revive the now unconscious Archer. Archer asks Tucker to use Daniels' sensors to locate Silik while he and T'Pol visit Daniels' quarters to study the database that Archer saw earlier. It is gone. Silik escapes to Shuttle Bay 4, and refuses to surrender the device, so Archer shoots it from his hand. Silik opens the bay doors and freefalls to a waiting Suliban shuttlepod, and Archer asks Lieutenant Reed to seal off Daniels' cabin and any temporal secrets it may hold.

*************

So, there's some shipboard action in this episode, and more questions than answers about the Temporal Cold War. Is Silik telling the truth? Of course not, because he's the bad guy, but it's not always obvious, particularly when dealing with someone like Daniels, who is from nine hundred years in the future and most definitely has an agenda of his own.

There are some amusing bits in this episode, such as when Trip tries to explain the Warp 5 engine in extreme layman's terms, only to have one of the aliens ask him direct and points questions about technological sophistication and making him look like a bit of a fool. The reveal of Daniels' 'archive' device is pretty neat, and the ominous ending when the cabin being sealed off suggests that there will be more to this later on.

I liked this episode, although it didn't really jump out as anything special. The alien cultures were interesting, having their own motivations and understanding of the universe. Archer gets to be heroic again, T'Pol gets to be very skeptical, and Silik gets to save the ship. I'll give it a 6 out of 10, and let's see what the second half of the season brings us.

I wrote my own far-future science fiction, Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, which is available in e-book and paperback format at an Amazon website near you. Check it out, and see another view of the far future.

The Shackled City: Introductory Episode

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we had our first D&D session for the new campaign. Here's a recap of how the game went, with much more detail than I put in the first time. I'm going to keep a running commentary on the game as we play it, for those who are interested.

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For those who aren't familiar with the Shackled City, it was the first 'adventure path' produced by Paizo in Dungeon Magazine just as the switch from D&D 3e to 3.5 was beginning (they are now on 5th edition and switching to whatever they will be calling the 6th edition). The main locale is the city of Cauldron, a sub-tropical city built inside an extinct volcano with a deep lake in the center of the crater. It was originally given a generic setting, but was retroactively set in Greyhawk (particularly when the third Adventure Path, the Savage Tide, came out a few years later). I, however, have set it in Mystara, on the continent of Davania. Because, as everyone knows, Mystara rules.

There are six PCs, using Players Handbook rules and everyone at 1st level (no Unearthed Arcana yet except for weapon specialization, and I have house ruled a few things). Most of the characters don't have names yet; this group is mostly teens, and they're stuck in video game mentality where their avatars aren't named. I'll work on that with them. In the meantime, though, here are the PCs:

Half-elf fighter, on the bard path
Human paladin
Elf fighter/magic-user
Gnome illusionist/thief
Human magic-user
Ms. Taskerhill, Human fighter

The last one is named simply because she took the Nobility trait, and I gave her the option of which noble family to be affiliated with. There is no cleric, which made them a tad nervous at first. Note that only the last, Ms. Taskerhill, is a new player (the mother of the elf, in fact), and so she was learning as she went, and I gave her the fighter pre-gen just to save time.

So, the party is somewhat spellcaster heavy (eventually having four casters once the fighter gets to bard levels, plus the paladin at 9th level). But they have good fighter capability (the half-elf and Ms. Taskerhill have specialization in longsword and battle axe, respectively), and the gnome has decent stats for a 1st-level thief.

The game began as the party was traveling together back to Cauldron from Sasserine after several months away, and they spent the night at the Lucky Monkey. This was mostly a role-playing opportunity, which had mixed results. Ms. Taskerhill was the best at getting into character, while the magic-user was virtually silent throughout the game. He's shy; we'll work on him. While they spoke with the innkeeper, they learned that there had been a series of kidnappings in Cauldron over the past few months. There were no suspects, just rumors flying around, and none of the victims had yet been found, not even their bodies.

The highlight of their stay at the Lucky Monkey was when a very attractive woman entered and went to the bar; the half-elf made a crude pass at her involving a wolf whistle (my son insisted that he was doing it out of character, but I couldn't resist). In response, she touched the wooden tabletop with her finger, and the wood reshaped itself into a hand and slapped him across the face (no damage) before returning to normal. The paladin was much better at personal interaction, and she introduced herself as Shensen, a local druid who often visited the Lucky Monkey.

Not much else happened at the Monkey, so in the morning the group continued on their journey home. It was a dismal, dreary, drizzly day with grey skies. They arrived at Cauldron close to nightfall, but before the gates were closed for the night. With the exception of the elf, the party is comprised of Cauldron natives, so only the elf had to pay the gate tax (1 sp) to enter the city. The group was going to break up and go their separate ways when they heard the sounds of scuffling in an alley nearby. Being eager adventuring types, they all went to investigate and found three men wearing assaulting a man on the ground. The men wore jester-like masks, the identifying mark of the Last Laugh thieves' guild. When confronted, the jesters warned the party off, but their intimidation was more effective in a three-on-one situation than in a six-on-three.

The paladin swung his bardiche at one of them, but just barely missed as the thug dodged at the last moment. Ms. Taskerhill slipped on the wet cobblestones and fell, unharmed but for her pride. The bard-in-training fared much better, swatting one of the thugs with the flat of his blade and sending him spinning to the ground, unconscious. The gnome did him one better, hitting the two remaining thugs with a color spray and knocking them out cold.

Shortly afterward, a patrol of the town guard came by, alerted by some locals who heard the sounds of fighting in the alley. Led by Corporal Skylar Krewis, the town guard took their statements, relying on Ms. Taskerhill and the paladin as the most reliable-looking members of the party. As they were finishing, one of the town guards realized that the thugs were themselves town guards. Concerned and angered, Corporal Krewis took them into custody and marched them off to the nearest guardhouse for questioning.

Meanwhile, the party assisted the assault victim, a low-level priest in the Church of Diulanna, Ruphus Laro. Ruphus informed them that the thugs were warning him not to investigate the latest kidnapping: Four children had been taken from the Lantern Street Orphanage. They had been in a locked room inside a locked building, with the only key around the neck of the Orphanage's headmistress. There were no clues as to their disappearance, and when Laro had gone to the Orphanage to speak with the headmistress, he had been attacked on his way back to the church.

Laro asked the party to accompany him back to the Church to report to his superior. They agreed, and met with Jenya Urikas, the current senior priest in the Church as the high priest was away in Sasserine. Jenya informed them of the kidnappings, and explained that it was a city-wide issue; the orphanage was simply the latest place to be hit. She had used a church artifact, the Star of Justice, to cast a divination spell and asked where the missing children were being held. She received her answer in the form of a cryptic riddle:

The locks are key to finding them. Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron. Beware the doors with teeth. Descend into the malachite 'hold, where precious life is bought with gold. Half a dwarf binds them, but not for long.

Jenya asked the party to continue the investigation on her behalf, since it was too risky for a single cleric such as Ruphus to undertake this task alone. The Last Laugh is a dangerous group, after all. They accepted her offer, and each of them received a healing potion from Jenya, and a promise of payment for successful return of the children. Ruphus would accompany them; the half-elf was particularly pleased, since that meant they had a cleric with them now.

In the morning, they all met at the church before going to the Lantern Street Orphanage together. There, they met the headmistress, Gweneth, an elderly woman who was suspicious about them until she saw Ruphus. At that point, she invited them in and answered all their questions as best she could. The group did some investigating, and the gnome tried to pick one of the locks just to see how good they were. It turned out that they were very good indeed (-25% to his lockpicking skill, meaning he had a 0% chance of success). Eventually, they discovered that the locks were made by a gnome artisan in the city, Keygan Ghelve. With no other leads, they went to the locksmith's shop to ask him some questions.

Keygan was welcoming at first, thinking they were potential customers, but as they began to question him, he became unhappy and uncooperative. After several minutes of fruitless attempts to get Keygan to talk, the elf surreptitiously cast a charm person. Keygan rolled a 1 on his saving throw, so he was done. He still wouldn't say much, although as he spoke, he kept slipping a gnomish word into his speech, a word that means 'in the back'. At first, the gnome illusionist/thief thought that meant there was something outside behind the building, but then he noticed the curtain behind the counter. To distract Keygan, he cast an audible glamer to make it sound like a window had broken elsewhere in the building. When Keygan went to look, the elf and half-elf slipped behind the curtain to investigate. The half-elf spotted the secret door under the stairs, but before he could look for a way to open it, something jumped from the top of the stairs and landed on him.

The timing was perfect, as we ended the session there, right at 9 pm. All in all, it went really well, although there were times when some of the players got a little too much into the 'out-of-character' banter, distracting from the game. Ms. Taskerhill, who has never played any sort of RPG before, said she had a great time and couldn't wait to do it again. The rest of the group also enjoyed the game, and everyone is looking forward to finding out what jumped on the half-elf, and what's behind the secret door.

Who's Yer Father? (Movie Review)

I have to talk about this movie; it's very much a PEI sort of thing, and people outside of the Maritimes probably didn't even hear about it, let alone watch it. And if they did, they wouldn't have understood half of it. But I have to say, it was a hell of a good time.

Even Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it:

Who's Yer Father? is a 2023 Canadian crime comedy film, written, produced, and directed by Jeremy Larter. The film stars Chris Locke as Larry Constable, a bumbling private investigator in a small Prince Edward Island town who teams up with convenience store owner Rhonda Perry (Susan Kent) to investigate a black market lobster smuggling ring.

And that's about it, aside from some more cast info and a brief mention of when it was filmed and released. It doesn't really do the movie justice.

I wasn't sure about going to it at first, but my wife really wanted to go, and it was on a limited release. So, we made a date of it, and sat down to one of the funniest movies I've watched in a long time. It's funny because it is so dead-accurate to life on PEI. I've been asked the title question many times when people find out I was born here. And it was quite cool seeing a couple of places I've actually been to appear in the movie. Charlottetown and Summerside aren't featured at all in this movie; it's very much a rural thing. Which covers 95% of this island, really.

The movie suggests that PEI doesn't actually have any private investigators, or rather only has the one, which I actually had to look into to find out if it was true. I've never required the services of a PI before, so the question of whether or not there are any on this island never came up until I saw this movie.

It's not exactly family-friendly; the language is coarse at best, and there is a lot of suggestive sexual references, although there's no nudity. Still, it's quite...earthy. The violence is either suggested and not shown, or it's absurd and played for laughs. Overall, though, this movie is definitely not for kids.

There are a few loose ends that never get tied up, such as what ends up happening to Larry's ostensible client, or whether or not the black market lobster ring (that still sounds funny as hell in my mind) is ever broken up. Let's just say that Larry will not be mistaken for Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot any time soon. But at least he can play the guitar, which those other two couldn't do, so he gets some bonus points for that.

I'm going to rate this movie an 8 out of 10; it's flawed, and as I said it's not for families, but it's a great little slice of the humorous side of life on a small island province. If it shows up on one of the streaming sites, check it out.

Farm Life in the Winter

Well, with winter finally in full swing, it's hunkering down season for the chickens. We've got three sets of them: one in the barn, one in the coop I built this summer, and one in the chicken house we bought a couple of months ago. For a while we weren't getting any eggs from them, which sucks, but lately they've been producing more. I'm not sure what brought it on, but maybe it's the variety in their diet, including the organ meat from the pigs we butchered last month. Hey, if they like it, I'm not going to complain.

The rabbits are still doing their thing in their hutch; I let them out at Christmas for some grass and fresh air, and it took three days to finally catch them all and return them to the hutch. I don't mind them being outside during the day, but we still have predators around here, and I'd rather not find rabbit guts or blood trails leading into the bush in the morning. Call me old-fashioned, I suppose.

The pigs, meanwhile, are doing great. They were happy to move back into the barn after the other pigs became freezer-bait, although they still spend a good chunk of time outside in their old shelter as well. At night, though, it's back to the barn and the warm straw. As to when they'll have babies, we're looking into that and trying to figure out how long it will be. We know that whatever babies Delilah does have won't be old enough to go to the butcher for at least a year, so we'll be bringing in some more meat pigs this year one last time.

The only other animals we have to worry about on the farm are the damn rats. I've tried a bunch of ways to kill them off, with limited success. We just bought some play-doh pellets laced with poison in hopes they will work on them. We'll see what happens, but I know I haven't seen a reduction in the rat population yet. In the spring, I'm going to take a more drastic measure.

So, things should be quiet on the farm for the next few months; things will ramp up again in April and May, once we get the greenhouse going and get the gardens planted again. There's a lot of planning to do before then, so I'll leave things off here and come back tomorrow.

The Game's Afoot!

Now that my wife isn't virulently opposed to Dungeons & Dragons, we got a game going tonight with the local RPG club. I'm running a 1st edition AD&D conversion of the 3rd edition Shackled City campaign, set in the gaming world of Mystara. We got off to a good start, with six players. I won't go into a lot of details just yet, but everyone had a good time, and we ended on a cliffhanger as one of the PCs got jumped after finding a secret door in a locksmith's shop. They'll have to wait until next Saturday to find out what happens next.

I prefer old school games, and I really don't like the proliferation of weird and ever-more-powerful races that later editions have come up with. Maybe I'm too much of a traditionalist, but give me a mostly-human party any day of the week. sure, the occasional gnome or elf works, but as spice, not the main course. And forget dragonborn, goliaths, warforged, and all the other really strange stuff that started back in 3rd edition and still goes on to this day. I just don't find them inspiring. Maybe I'm just old.

Anyway, the game started with an introductory encounter at the Lucky Monkey Roadside Inn, where they got to do some actual role-playing and get a feel for their characters. It was fun, particularly when the half-elf bard-to-be (1st edition, remember?) jokingly tried to hit on the good-looking woman that showed up. She responded by touching the table in front of him, which formed a hand and slapped him across the face. Don't mess with druids. He kept insisting that he was joking and talking out of character, but I couldn't resist the opportunity. I hoped it would help cut down on the silly non-game bantering, but I was disappointed in that hope.

The game moved into Cauldron, where they soon found out about the rash of kidnappings, and rescued a local priest from being mugged and threatened by some thugs, warning him to stay away from investigating the kidnappings. The PCs took them down in a hurry, and got involved in the investigation at the behest of the local cleric of Diulanna. They investigated the orphanage where the latest kidnapping had occurred, and then moved on to the locksmith who had made the orphanage's locks.

When they got there, they found a nervous and uncooperative gnome who tried to send subtle warnings in gnomish to one of the PCs (a fellow gnome, obviously). They ended up investigating the back of his shop, and had just found a secret door when suddenly the half-elf got jumped...and we ended the night's play.

As I said, everyone enjoyed the game, including the newest player (one of the other players' mother and the host of the gaming club). We'll be reconvening in nine days' time to see what happens next. It's going to be fun.

Getting Back on Track

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I didn't do much writing after I left my job and became a full-time farmer. It sucks, and it's the second time a major change in circumstance has messed with my writing; the first was when we moved out here. I finally got back into the swing of things at the end of 2022, but the farm took over completely by May of 2023.

Well, it's time to rectify that, and I've already started working on something new. It's a story I've had in my head for a lot of years. It's a 'shared universe' story, set in the same world as the stories of Kane. It's set in a different part of the world, and Kane won't be making an appearance. It's another 'fish out of water' story, but with very different circumstances. I won't give any more details just yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

I've also got another story in the world of Meterra on the go, which I was working on last year during the April A to Z blogging challenge. It's the story of Bartinus of the Royal Rangers and his efforts to solve the mystery of a growing swamp. I know, but it's fantasy; why expect normal?

And yes, I have a couple of ideas for Cameron Vail mysteries, although they're both in the larval stages right now. I'm going to try to plan them out a little better this time instead of the usual 'just write it and figure it out as you go' method. I don't know if it will work out better, but we'll see.

So, there's plenty of writing to be done, and I'd best get to it. I said I wanted to get at least ten books published this year, so I'll need to get them written first. Wish me luck.

To get a taste of the world where the first new book is set, check out the first Book of Kane, Crimson Moon, available now at an Amazon website near you.

Filling the Gaps

Some people say I have an obsession with books and collecting them. To those people, I laugh and say, 'obsession is such a mild word.'

While 2023 wasn't a banner year for collecting books, I did get some nice prizes from both online sources and used book stores here on Prince Edward Island. One of the things I have is a complete collection of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, all fourteen of them. Garrett (the youngest) has read a couple of them with me, but he's lost interest lately, so we're still working on the third book, Ozma of Oz. I remember it being a fun book to read when I was a kid, but he's somewhat flighty with his reading choices.

I also started re-collecting an author I enjoyed when I was younger: Terry Brooks. I know, a lot of old-school fantasy readers blame him for basically copying Lord of the Rings with the Sword of Shannara and making 'epic Tolkien pastiche' the dominant genre of fantasy for an entire generation until J.K. Rowling published Harry Potter and started a new trend. Well, that's basically true, although he definitely has his own style, and the rest of the books in the original trilogy were very different from Sword. And he's done a lot of other books in the world of Shannara, including some prequels that confirm that Shannara is just our world in the distant future after a massive nuclear apocalypse. Not the most original premise, no, but it still reads well. I've got about half of his books now, thanks to a great find at the Salvation Army where I picked up about ten of them at once for about five bucks.

Not to neglect the mystery genre, I picked up a few books at thrift stores by Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Erle Stanley Gardner. By no means do I have even a majority of the books by any of those writers, but it's nice to have some of them back after a long time without. It's great inspiration for the Cameron Vail books, after all.

Back to fantasy, and I found a bunch of books collecting Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories from the 1930s and 1940s. I'm only missing one book to complete that set, which of course is a foundational work for Dungeons & Dragons. Good stuff, very gripping. I've also collected a few more of the 'Appendix N' books, although they can be hard to come by since gamers have been collecting them for a long time now.

Finally, I mentioned yesterday that we're taking a trip to France in 2025. One of the stops we will be making is to Vimy Ridge, one of the most important historical battles in Canadian history. And to prepare for that, I picked up a copy of Pierre Berton's Vimy. I read it years ago, and it's a great book with tons of detail provided by men who were actually there. For those who don't know, Berton is a Canadian author and historical writer who wrote a bunch of books on Canadian history in his lifetime. Older Canadians will remember him; he was a familiar face on various TV shows during the 1970s and 80s. I grabbed a few more of his books over the course the past year, and I have six or seven of them now. They are great reads, covering all sorts of topics such as the Canadian Railroad, the Depression, Confederation, etc. I highly recommend them for anyone interested in Canadian history.

No big-ticket books this year, although I'm hoping to get some of the missing volumes from the Great Books series; a flood back in Ontario ruined about half of the set, and I haven't been able to replace them yet. Here's hoping. Ideally, if I could add a few things to my library this year, I would want to get some more of the writings of the Early Church Fathers, finish the Terry Brooks collection, fill the gaps in my Great Books set, and some more mysteries, particularly by the aforementioned trio of authors.

How about you? Any books you added to your collection, or things you're on the lookout for in 2024? Let me know. Maybe we can help each other find them.

Another New Year...

Okay, I see that people have actually been visiting the blog despite my lack of activity over the past six months, so I guess I really need to get back to it. And now seems as good a time as any.

So, a quick review of 2023: I published four books at the beginning of the year, then fell off the writing wagon as my work situation drastically changed and I became a full-time farmer. We raised about 125 meat chickens, learned how to butcher them ourselves, actually DID butcher some of them ourselves, and raised five pigs from weaning. Three of those pigs are now in the freezer; two of them are breeders, and will be giving us bacon seeds in the spring. We also got a bunch of chickens and a coop from a homesteader who moved to North Carolina last month, so we currently have about forty egg-laying chickens, two pigs, and three bunnies. And a crap-ton of rats, which stubbornly refuse to die off.

That's 2023 in a nutshell. Now, on to 2024.

So, what are the goals for this year? Well, I have a few. First we're going to be getting a greenhouse in the spring. I'm going to be growing a LOT of tomatoes and peppers for sale, as well as a bunch of other veggies. We're also planning to ramp up our chicken flock, particularly in the meat-bird category; the goal for 2024 is at least 200 chickens. We're also going to get five or six more pigs for meat, since Samson and Delilah's kids will take a year to grow.

Why are we ramping up like this? Because I'm going to be selling the veggies to a local business that will turn all that fresh, naturally-grown produce into meals for people to buy. And we grew our customer base for our meat as well. We're only selling to locals and friends, since we're not a commercial farm. But it definitely provides us with some income.

So, that's the farm. What about the writing? I candidly admit I failed miserably to meet any of my writing goals after publishing that fourth book in April. The switch to farming really upended everything, and I found myself constantly putting off the writing in favor of other things that seemed more important. I'm not going to make that mistake this year; I'm still aiming for ten books to be published in 2024. I'm starting the first one tonight; I don't have anything nearly complete that I can just whip off in a few days and get ready for publication.

I'm also going to take the books I've already published and get them on other platforms besides Amazon. I'm not sure how much work that will take, but if I can add them onto Indigo, that's the main Canadian book seller (like Barnes & Noble in the States). It will certainly increase my potential audience, which can't hurt.

Another interesting development is that my wife finally gave in on playing Dungeons & Dragons. Not that she's going to ever play, but since our middle son wants to play, she finally relented, and we've got a biweekly game going at a local place with some of his friends. I'm the DM, at least for now, and we'll see how long it goes on for. We're starting a new campaign, a conversion of the Shackled City campaign from twenty years ago, converted to 1st edition Advanced D&D. It's going to be a blast.

I'm also going to be more diligent in keeping the blog going; I really wasn't expecting this many people to come see what I've been doing, so it's really great to see some traffic. And I'll have to give people a reason to keep coming back, so it's time to get this done. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it up consistently all year, but I'm certainly going to make every effort. And I plan on doing the A to Z challenge in April again as well, with another writing theme.

One more thing that we have going on: My son and I are going to France next year, April of 2025. It's a school trip, with a strong history theme. We'll be going to Vimy Ridge, Normandy, Versailles, and a day trip to the Netherlands as well to see how much they love Canada there. I can't wait to go; it's going to be amazing.

Alright, it's another new year, another set of resolutions, and it's going to be the biggest year yet for me, for the family, for the farm, and for the blog.