Feed aggregator

WWE is giving huge bounces to top executives Triple H received $5 million Nick Khan received $15 million Kevin Dunn received $7 million WWE signing a 40% increase on their…

A new, bone-chilling supernatural thriller from film, television, and comics creator Mark Verheiden and writer/actor Aaron Douglas MILWAUKIE, Ore., (September 21 2023)— Dark Horse Comics invites readers to the icy, dark…

The Max Original series DOOM PATROL will continue its fourth and final season with two new episodes THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, followed by one new episode weekly through November 9. Season 4 mid-season logline: In…

"Wretched New Flesh - Second Edition RELEASED! Now available at the Red Room store, @biggeekemporium and @GiantSlayerRPGs. Wretched New Flesh transports players to a dystopian future inspired by the dark visions of William S. Burroughs, David Cronenberg, William Gibson, JG Ballard and Clive Barker. " "This surreal future-noir roleplaying game setting combines elements of cyberpunk, biopunk, and Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

SECOND COMING: TRINITY #6 (W) Mark Russell (A) Richard Pace, Leonard Kirk Cover: Richard Pace Heartbreaking final issue of the series that’s “incredibly empathetic, thoughtful, and — in the right…

HALESTORM, GWAR, DEE SNIDER OF TWISTED SISTER, AND ALAN ROBERT of LIFE OF AGONY AMONG THE GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE Z2 Comics will invade New York Comic Con in October with…

For Immediate Release: TRICK OR TREAT! MONSTER FUN’S HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR 2023 DEBUTS NEW LOOK!   Across the summer hundreds of children from across the UK picked up their pencils and…

HEAD Rattling chains at the gamer table It so happens most of those who game in our little group also happens to play disc golf – a couple of us…

One last heist… Or there’ll be hell to pay. LOS ANGELES, CA (September 21, 2023) – The hit Stray Bullets creative team of David & Maria Lapham, along with colorist…

This January, writer Steve Orlando returns to the world of Marvel 2099 alongside a lineup of acclaimed artists and terrifying new 2099 characters!    New York, NY— September 21, 2023…

Three hexes southwest, nine northwest of Alakran.

  

Uketta is a settlement, but not one that formed organically. It is a project of the previous civilian governor of Wahattu. Burnaburiash the "Fretful Spectre" wasn't as bad as Erkuzakir of the Execution Spikes, but had some whims about social reform that were not necessarily for the better. He had it in for the Ayotochin armadillo-people, thought they were a rootless and uncontrolled element that led to social disorder. Any of them he found wandering, he had rounded up and sent to an oasis farm, Uketta, in the desert near the hills that give birth to the Khepu badlands. 

These ayoto are slaves; there are fifty of them, their second generation in bondage, but some of them being relatively new catches. They are kept in irons and terror, and the old saying holds true; slave labor is free, but guards (of which there are 10, tough and brutal thugs all) and dogs (of which there are 6, savage, burly breeds) cost money. The place is now run by the son of Burna, Zuuthus the "Mute Drunkard," whose epithet is fully ironic -- the man cannot stop talking and has his guards flogged if they even smell of wine.

This place of cruelty produces valuable harvests of grain and garden crops, and food prices will rise in Gesshed if it is disrupted. For this reason, and through various favors owed to the present governor Zakiti, it is allowed to stay in business. Zakiti hates this situation, though, and would gladly see Zuuthus overthrown, provided the ayoto can be persuaded to stay on and manage the farm where they have so many bad memories. Some wanderers with plausible deniability would be perfect for the job. 

But in addition to the guards and dogs they will have to contend with Zuuthus, who has lived hiding his born wild magic powers -- a 7th level sorcerer. Also, there is Zuuthus' right-hand house slave Cuzuco, a 5th level ayoto rogue thoroughly indoctrinated to support the order, and who can count on ten trusty ayoto to subvert and betray the other forty if they rise up in rebellion. The reward is rich; two generations of the farm have left a chest of 4000 gold pieces in the master's house, and half that amount in costly furnishings and artworks.

The Plush Pumpkin Basket is a fun and seasonal lidded crochet container, and a free crochet pattern on Moogly! Featuring Bernat Plush Big and Bernat Plush, you can craft this festive pattern in whatever size and color you like - Great Pumpkin approved! Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links; materials provided by Yarnspirations. Go Plush......

Read More

The post Plush Pumpkin Basket appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post. If you are viewing this on another site they have scraped the content from my website without permission. Thank you for your support.

0

Thinking about the phylogenetic connection between the Lost Worlds of Victorian adventure fiction and the planetary romances of last century led me to an overall classification scheme for all sorts of unusual/fantastic lands or country within large settings (whether that larger setting be an approximation of the real world or a secondary, fantasy world). This was quickly done, so it might bear further though. 

The Strange Country: The Strange Country probably is an outgrowth of The Odyssey and Medieval travelogues. It is a place definitely situated in the wider world and generally not differing in its physical laws but possessed of its least one unusual feature whether than be a geographic anomaly, cultural eccentricity, or weird animal. Most of the various city-states of Barsoom, and the countries of Vance's Tschai or Raymond's Mongo fall into this category. The "Planet of Hats" TV trope is the Strange Country on a planetary scale. The Strange Country differs from the more mundane foreign land by the degree of exaggeration in its unique thing and by the fact that beyond that thing, it isn't usual that foreign in terms of culture, language, etc.

The Lost World: The Lost World is more remote and more divergent from the outside world that the Strange Country. Most often it's an isolated pocket of one or more elements of the world's past, but it could be completely alien. Perhaps its most defining feature is that it is typically a hidden place and is much harder to reach than the strange country. Maple White Land of Doyle's The Lost World is the prototypical example, but Tarzan encounters a lot of these "lost valleys" from Crusader to remnants to lost Atlantean cities. The dividing line between the weirder Strange Countries and Lost Worlds isn't entirely clear, but if the place is widely known to scholars just seldom visited, it's a Strange Country. If no one knew it existed or it was believed to be mythical, it's a Lost World.

Fairyland: The Fairyland is a region defined by its fantasticalness. Physical laws may be very different from the surrounding world. If it has contact with the wider world if is limited and geographical conscribed. Often though, it will be as remote as the Lost World--even more so, perhaps, because it may not strictly be placeable on a map, existing in an extradimensional space. Literal Fairy lands are generally Fairylands, but so is the demonic subworlds of a number of Michael Shea's fantasy novels, Hades in Greek Myth, or Wackyland in Warner Bros. cartoons featuring the Dodo.

On August 15, 1979, a 16-year-old college student and computer nerd named James Dallas Egbert III disappeared from Michigan State University. His parents hired private detective William Dear to find their missing boy.

Dallas Egbert played D&D, a game that seemed strange enough to becomes Dear’s key lead. The detective focused his hunt on the notion that Egbert had played Dungeons & Dragons in the eight miles of steam tunnels under the university and remained lost, hidden, or trapped. Dear wondered if D&D had broken the “fragile barrier between fantasy and reality.” Perhaps D&D left Egbert so deluded that he believed he was a wizard exploring the dungeon. Perhaps his attempt to make the game real had left him hurt or even dead in the tunnels. “Dallas might actually have begun to live the game, not just to play it.”

Egbert’s disappearance introduced Dungeons & Dragons to America. The reports painted the game as “bizarre” and its players as a “cult.” A story in The New York Times speculated that Egbert became lost “while playing an elaborate version of a bizarre intellectual game called Dungeons & Dragons.”

“Students at Michigan State University and elsewhere reportedly have greatly elaborated on the game, donning medieval costumes and using outdoor settings to stage the content.”

On September 9, The San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner published an article titled, “Fantasy cult angle probed in search for computer whiz.”

“Police hunting for a missing 16-year-old computer whiz, yesterday completed a futile search of tunnels beneath the Michigan State University campus where fantasy lovers acted out roles in a bizarre game.”

Reporters consistently painted D&D as a “bizarre” game enjoyed by “secretive” and “cultish” players. Under the story lies the notion that D&D pulls players so deeply into fantasy that they lose touch with reality—that the game lures players to play out the fantasy in real life.

On September 13, less than a month after the disappearance, Egbert called and revealed his location. The teen’s attempt to flee depression had led him on a trek that took him to the home of an older male “admirer,” to Chicago, and then to Morgan City, Louisiana. During his trek, he survived two suicide attempts.

Egbert had turned to D&D for respite from his other troubles. He faced intense academic pressure from parents who had pushed him to skip two grades. He was gay at a time when few people accepted or tolerated the trait. (Later, he would beg Dear to keep this secret hidden.) In the book Perfect Victims, journalist Bill James writes, “Egbert was living among older kids who had nothing in common with him and who didn’t particularly like him. He was regarded as an irritating little twerp. He was 16, but looked 12. He got involved in numerous campus activities and groups, each of which devised a new kind of rejection for him.”

In a press conference, Dear said the teenager’s disappearance was not related to Dungeons & Dragons. But the detective still saw D&D as a bad influence. “You’re leaving the world of reality into the world of fantasy,” Dear said. “This isn’t a healthy game.”

The story of James Dallas Egbert ends sadly. In 1980, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Perhaps if he had lived just a little longer, his tale could have led to a happier ending. The intelligence that isolated him could have become an asset. The secret that tormented him became more accepted. Perhaps, in more time, D&D could have helped him find his people.

For the full story, see The Media Furor that Introduced the “Bizarre Intellectual Game” of Dungeons & Dragons to America.

Next: Number 1.

The post Video of the Day – Hijack: Official Trailer, 2023 appeared first on Blogtor Who.

The Meep has found its voice as Miriam Margoyles joins the cast of The Star Beast

BAFTA-winning star of stage and screen Miriam Margoyles lends her voice to an iconic character. The award-winning actor joins Doctor Who for the 60th anniversary specials that will air this November. Miriam is the voice behind the Meep, the iconic creature adapted from The Star Beast comic strip.

On joining Doctor Who, Miriam Margolyes said:

“I’m relieved I got to work on Doctor Who before I died. With sci-fi you never know. Thank you for making an old woman very happy.”

Voice actors are often among the last to be cast in projects, due to it being possible for them to record their contributions long after filming has finished. (Though Blogtor Who must admit, Margoyles’ casting has been a bit of an open secret for some time.)

The Meep in The Star Beast TV adaptation (c) Bad Wolf/BBC Studios Miriam Margoyles is more than just a famous face, she’s also voiced some beloved characters

The actor will be a famous face to many due to her roles in the likes of Romeo + Juliet, The Age of Innocence (for which she received her BAFTA nomination) and Blackadder. But she’s also a versatile voice actor. She voiced multiple characters in the English dub of iconic children’s adventure series Monkey. Meanwhile, she was the motherly Fly the sheepdog in beloved classic Babe, and the Matchmaker in Mulan.

Intriguingly, the casting information refers to her Doctor Who character simply as ‘the Meep.’ In the original Star Beast comic he was ‘Beep the Meep,’ with Beep one member of the Meep species. So why the change? One possibility is that Margoyles is playing a different Meep. Perhaps the new TV adventure isn’t overwriting the DWW original as such, but simply a case of the Fourteenth Doctor, Donna and Rose having a very, very, similar adventure to one once had by the Fourth and Sharon?

Excitingly, it actually isn’t very long now until we can find out… In fact, with the specials getting ever closer, advance promotion is visibly ramping up. A blipvert trailer ahead of last Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing featured clues in binary code. Clues which suggested Who fans should make sure to be sat in front of their tellies before this Saturday’s edition.That would be exactly two months before the 60th Anniversary itself. What better excuse for a new trailer?

 

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary poster (c) BBC Studios Doctor Who returns in November with three 60th Anniversary specials on BBC One in the UK and Ireland, and Disney+ worldwide

The post Miriam the Meep! Margolyes Joins Doctor Who 60th appeared first on Blogtor Who.

 Right I haven't been on Facebook in two days because of real life however when I logged on this morning Paul Elliot had sent me the latest Hostile Situation Report #9 - Extraction. The set up goes something like this; " The mining colony's a bust and the company has decided to pull out. The lawless colonists will be left to their own devices, but behind a screen of frightened soldiers, the last Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Collide Discussion Questions

Decision

Check out our ongoing resources for each age group:

• • • • • Preschool
        • Elementary 
        • Collide 
        • Parents

        And don’t forget to follow Kidz Rock on Facebook and Instagram!

           

The post Collide – September 17th appeared first on Church of The Rock.

Welcome to the final edition of the Loop Scoop! It's been an amazing decade of beautiful and inspiring crochet and knit projects, and we are so grateful to everyone who has participated over the years. In this post, we have our final 5 winners - congratulations to all, and thank you again to everyone who...

Read More

The post Loop Scoop 70: Our Last Yarny Link Party appeared first on moogly. Please visit www.mooglyblog.com for this post. If you are viewing this on another site they have scraped the content from my website without permission. Thank you for your support.

2

In 1997 Wizards of the Coast bought Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR, rescuing the company from bankruptcy. New D&D head Ryan Dancey looked for ways to turn the game into a healthy business. Dancey saw fan contributions as an enhancement to the D&D community that strengthened the game’s place in the market. Support from fans and from third-party publishers encouraged more people to play D&D. Dancey wrote, “This is a feedback cycle—the more effective the support is, the more people play D&D. The more people play D&D, the more effective the support is.” Besides, the numbers showed that the D&D business made money selling core books. Why not let fans and other companies bear the weight of supporting the game with low-profit adventures, settings, and other add-ons?

Dancey’s thinking led to the introduction of the Open Gaming License and the d20 License. Using these licenses gamers and gaming companies could create and distribute products compatible with the D&D rules. Sometimes the products competed with Wizard’s own publications, but the overall contributions from the community helped the game flourish. Other role-playing game companies recognized the success of this strategy and introduced similar licenses for their games.

The OGL granted a perpetual license, encouraging game publishers to view the OGL as a safe agreement to base investments on. “When v1.0a was published and authorized, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast did so knowing that they were entering into a perpetual licensing regime,” Dancey said. However, the OGL does not grant an irrevocable license, and to lawyers, perpetual licenses can sometimes be revoked.

In 2022, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks and Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams appeared in a presentation for investors. Williams touted D&D’s popularity but described the game “under monetized.” Wizards aimed to do a better job of gaining income from the game, bringing more earnings to stockholders.

With monetization in mind, Wizards executives probably looked at other publishers profiting from D&D-compatible products and felt D&D’s owner deserved a cut. Royalties on a million-dollar Kickstarter for a D&D-compatible product would hardly move the bottom line of a company the size of Hasbro, but multiply that cut by 10 or more multi-dollar dollar kickstarters per year, every year, and the payoff adds up. So, the company asked lawyers to find a way break the OGL, and the legal team found a potential out in the word “authorized.”

The OGL states, “You may use any authorized version of this License.” What if Wizards simply declared current version of the license “unauthorized,” and then replaced the OGL with a new version containing terms that favored the company? Wizards prepared a FAQ that explained, “OGL 1.0a only allows creators to use ‘authorized’ versions of the OGL which allows Wizards to determine which of its prior versions to continue to allow use of when we exercise our right to update the license. As part of rolling out OGL 2.0, we are deauthorizing OGL 1.0a from future use and deleting it from our website. This means OGL 1.0a can no longer be used to develop content for release.”

The new OGL license required publishers to register their products, demanded royaties from larger publishers, and enabled Wizards to revoke the new agreement. Wizards surely knew such a move would meet resistance from the D&D community, but they made some allowances to minimize criticism.

• The new OGL introduced some high-minded changes such as rules that prohibited material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.” Wizards undoubtedly supported such additions, but they also gave the company a way to claim that the new agreement came from noble goals. In a FAQ, Wizards states, “OGL wasn’t intended to fund major competitors and it wasn’t intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or printable) materials for use while gaming. We are updating the OGL in part to make that very clear.”
• The new OGL only demanded royalties from the few companies who grossed more than $750,000 on D&D-comparable products. Wizards probably hoped that this would leave the vast number of D&D creators with no cause for complaint. That proved a miscalculation, perhaps because most D&D creators eyeing a million-dollar Kickstarter think, someday that could be my project.
• The high-royalty rates in the new OGL only represented an opening offer in a negotiation. In late 2022 Wizards gathered about 20 third-party creators to outline the new OGL and to offer 15% royalty rate rather than 25% to publishers willing to sign a separate agreement. For growing companies, the OGL promised, “If You appear to have achieved great success…from producing OGL: Commercial content, We may reach out to You for a more custom (and mutually beneficial) licensing arrangement.”

Likely Wizards executives hoped big publishers would come to terms before the new OGL became public, smaller publisher and fans would consider themselves unaffected by the OGL, and any lingering objections would be forgotten. They miscalculated. A draft of the new OGL leaked, igniting a firestorm of criticism.

For eight days, Wizard’s avoided commenting on the leak. According to insiders, the company’s managers saw fans as overreacting and calculated that in a few months everyone would forget the uproar. The company drafted a FAQ they hoped would soothe fans and help speed acceptance.

Meanwhile, many of the biggest OGL publishers announced plans to drop the OGL or to introduce their own gaming licenses for their product. A fan-led campaign to send a clear message to Wizards by canceling D&D Beyond subscriptions went viral. So many gamers went to the site to stop payments that the traffic temporary shutdown the page. The story reached mainstream news.

Wizards of the Coast got the message. They scrambled to make accommodations, first by promising to remove the most onerous provisions from the new license, and then by committing to keep the existing OGL. Ultimately, Wizards put the Systems Reference Document for D&D 5.1 into the Creative Commons using a perpetual, irrevocable open license agreement outside the company’s control.

Related: The Legal Fight Over Happy Birthday and What It May Tell Us About D&D’s Rumored OGL 1.1

Next: Number 2.