Author Archives: TheUser

D&D: The Five Stars: Background information and race relations

The Five Stars is the name of my Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition campaign, set in a land featuring five deities known as the Five Stars. We began playing on 3/3/2013.

The Land of the Five Stars is heavily populated by three races – the humans, elves, and dwarves. The elves live in the Azsant Forest in the north. From the Azsant Forest flows a river that flows south into Lake Lira with the human city-state of Lira on its east banks. Rivers flow from Lake Lira to the west into the Bay of Geldor along the coast. On the southeastern side of the bay lies the human city-state of Geldor. A final river flows southwest out of Lake Lira to a much smaller lake called Lida’s Step. Water flows south of Lida’s Step into the Karda Mountains.The Karda Mountains run almost the length of the civilized region. In the west, the Karda Mountains are lush, but in the east, known simply as East Karda, they are barren. The area surrounding East Karda is known as the Karda Desert. To the west of the Karda Mountains, between the mountains on the ocean, is a hilly region home to the gnomes and aptly named the Gnomelands. A final river flows west out of Lida’s Step, through the Gnomelands, and into the ocean.

Human-Elf relations

Elves have traveled throughout the human lands and will be familiar with both Geldor and Lara. Lara, being close to the Azsant Forest and home of many magic users, will be very familiar to many elves. Humans stereotype elves as being physically weak and magically strong. While some humans are curious about the Azsant Forest, the elves don’t usually like other sentient races in their land. Humans in both Geldor and Lira will be familiar with elves.

Human-Dwarf relations

The dwarves will be very familiar with humans. Bera has good trade relations with Geldor, so many dwarves will also be familiar with the city of Geldor. Humans will be fairly familiar with dwarves, which can be seen in any major human settlement. In addition, dwarves are extremely populous in Geldor. Some humans of Geldor may also be familiar with their city, Bera, in the Karda Mountains. Humans also know that there’s a second dwarven city-state, and many believe these dwarves to be lower class but don’t know much about them. Dwarves are known to humans for their blacksmithing and gem mining.

Human-Gnome relations

Traditionally gnomes stayed within the Gnomelands or the Karda Mountains. Only recently have they begun to explore the lands of humans. Gnomes are usually curious of humans but some are wary because of humans’ tendency to look down on gnomes. Humans who have been to Bera will be familiar with gnomes. However, gnomes aren’t seen often outside of the Gnomelands or the dwarven territory. Many humans dismiss them because of their size.

Elf-Dwarf relations

Most dwarves that stay in the Karda Mountains won’t be very familiar with elves, although they know of them. Dwarves who live in human cities will be familiar with them. Many dwarves feel on edge around elves, feeling like they’re too formal.

Elf-Gnome relations

Despite tending to stay in their corner of the world, gnomes have begun a relationship with the elves. Looking to learn more about nature and magic, some gnomes look up to the elves. Gnomes are naturally curious and see in the elves a strong sense of responsibility and much knowledge. Elves have let some gnomes into the Azsant Forest to study with them. Similarly elves have traveled to the Gnomelands, but this is less common.

Dwarf-Gnome relations

Dwarves and gnomes have been friends for a very long time. Dwarves consider the Gnomelands to be very rural, while gnomes consider dwarven settlements to be big cities. As such, dwarves don’t travel to the Gnomelands often, but gnomes are quite common in dwarves cities. Gnomes are only other race to be readily familiar with the two types of dwarves, Berai dwarves in the Karda Mountains from Bera and Krarn dwarves in East Kara from Krar.

Scalzi’s The Sound of Rebellion sets focus on tension

In this week’s episode of The Human Division, The Sound of Rebellion, John Scalzi contrasts last week’s humor with a captive soldier and a lot of tension. We might not see the main characters, but we get some cool Colonial Defense Forces action!

The Sound of Rebellion continues the trend of giving clues as to who the antagonists are without revealing it just yet. Without spoiling the plot, I can also say that we get another interesting look at the abilities of the CDF and of BrainPals in general. One of the most fascinating aspects of Scalzi’s Old Man War universe is how Scalzi has explored what having a powerful, implanted computer in your mind would allow you to do.

Hopefully next week we’ll get a little closer to finding out just who is fighting against the Colonial Union.

The Time Machine

I decided to reread The Time Machine recently because I hadn’t read it since high school. I finished it yesterday, and I was very impressed with the novella. Most people probably already accept the fact that it’s a classic, so I don’t think I need to discuss its merits here.

However, I particularly like some of H.G. Wells’ notions on time travel that I forgot. For example, one of the time traveler’s guests remarks that if the machine simply travels along the fourth-axis, time, faster (or in reverse), shouldn’t they still see the machine sitting there? The time traveler responds that just a fast moving thing barely makes an impression because it moves through your vision too quickly, a time machine traveling through time doesn’t make a deep enough impression on three dimensions to be seen.

In addition, Wells makes some interesting observations about class structure in societies and human progress. What’s our goal? Can we go too far? I don’t have answers, but they’re good questions to ponder.

A birthday celebration at the Dinner Detective

To celebrate gem’s birthday, I got us tickets to the Dinner Detective, a murder mystery dinner show. I’d been wanting to do this for her for some time now because I know she likes mysteries. This was the perfect time!

The show was fantastic. It was incredibly funny and more of a show than I expected. I thought there’d be more mingling (and I wasn’t sure how that was going to be), and there was a little, but there was only 10 minutes or so of it total besides talking to the people at our own table.

Having actors mixed into the crowd meant that you weren’t sure if someone was part of the show or not, which really added to the fun. Everyone wore name tags with aliases. gem chose Charlotte Charles (“Chuck”), so I chose Ned to match her. (It’s a reference to Pushing Daisies.) Roleplaying was encouraged, which was really exciting yet odd. It made the evening feel kind of surreal. Usually when you socialize, you’re getting to know people, and you might make new friends. At the show, I socialized with people without knowing if they were choosing to tell me about the real them or a make believe them. I think it’d be fascinating and fun to throw a party at which each person was supposed to roleplay as a made up person. In fact, it’d be fun to attend a normal party and just make up a personality.

Unfortunately, gem and I didn’t figure out who the killer was. Despite having figured out very few of the clues, Pete actually won!

We didn’t get a chance to take any pictures at the show, but we took one after the show with our name tags still on our shirts. gem is holding her birthday gift from my parents. You can tell that Labbit is smart and distinguished from his magnificent mustache.

Ally Condie reaches her conclusion in Reached

In Reached, many questions about the Society, the Rising, and other peoples are finally answered. The title and cover art are very appropriate with Casia breaking free in her red dress. In fact, if you’ve never paid attention to the covers to the previous books, you really should!

Things don’t go as smoothly for everyone as they would have liked, and there are some large changes in play for the population. I repeatedly wondered how there could be a happy ending for everyone. This is something that plagues any story of a love triangle in which you care about all three. Not every character gets his or her happy ending, but many do.

Condie answers a lot of questions, but she leaves some unanswered. She does, however, reinforce Casia’s grandfather’s statement that it’s okay to wonder. Are there other far away countries, and if so, what are they like? What’s the final outcome? Casia’s story comes to a nice conclusion by the end, but everything isn’t spelled out for the reader. There’s plenty more about which to wonder, which is, I suspect, just how Condie wants it.

And who knows? Maybe she’ll write more in this universe!

Cross-posted on Goodreads.

The Dog King delivers a large dose of humor to the Scalzi’s The Human Division

Scalzi’s seventh episode of The Human Division, The Dog King, returns to the main characters of the novel, Wilson, Schmidt, and friends. When the diplomatic team gets a new assignment and Wilson is assigned to watching a dog, he gets into a bit of trouble.

The episodic nature of the Human Division allows Scalzi to use a different tone in each episode. While the novel and the Old Man’s War series as a whole has always had some humor, the Dog King seems like more a comedy than previous episodes. I think it’s great that with the Human Division we get a variety of types of episodes. Consider that “Everyone dissolved into a puddle of awwwww” is an actual sentence you can read by experiencing the Dog King. Awesome, right?

My 27th birthday

Yesterday was my 27th birthday, and it was a fine one at that. It had been cold lately, but the 27th was nice and warm. It was nice to really feel the sun’s warmth sink into my skin when I went for a walk. It was the first time in a while that I didn’t need a jacket.

My birth-minute is 1:27 on 2/27, so I spoke to gem on the phone at that time. After work we went to Polly’s Pies. Because we’ve been watching Pushing Daisies, which often takes place at a pie restaurant called the Pie Hole, I had been craving pie. We split a slice of apple pie with ice cream and cherry pie. Both were delicious! We brought a slice of peach pie home too for another night.

At home I took a shower, and that’s when festivities took a slight detour. The shower was clogged. Once that was settled, it was time for part two of the amazing pie night – pizza pie! We headed to Gina’s Pizza, my favorite pizza joint, for a chicken, meatball, roasted pepper, jalepeño, and pineapple pizza! It was delicious.

gem got me a gift too. She bought me a box of peanut butter chocolate protein bars and a box of assorted protein bars! It’s kind of sad that this excited me, but it did. There are even a couple flavors in there that I haven’t tried yet, chocolate chip and peanut butter crunch.

It was a very nice birthday.

Crossed by Ally Condie

Following the dysopian future shown in Matched, Crossed explores the fringes of that society. More importantly, it shows what’s outside of that. While it was exciting, a story becomes less dystopian once it’s outside of the society proper.

When I discussed Matched, I compared it to other novels in the same genre. The series especially reminded me of The Hunger Games. Fortunately, things deviated. First, there was the secret. I won’t give it away, but it raises the tensions a bit. Second, the ending of Crossed definitely paves the way for Reached, the final book, to be quite exciting (and different)!

I’m starting Reached tonight.

Scalzi’s The Back Channel reveals the Conclave

With the sixth episode of the Human Division, Scalzi finally gave me what I really wanted. He showed me the Conclave.

While the Back Channel shows humans as well, it really showcases alien members of the Conclave and the Conclave itself as a political unit. More than anything in the Old Man’s War universe, that’s what I wanted to see next, so I was thrilled to find myself before a large political body of the Conclave.

The Back Channel raises some tension in the story while reaffirming that while the Conclave might be at odds with the Colonial Union, they’re not villains (at least not to the readers). Without giving anything away, we also see that we still have a missing puzzle piece.

Frank Miller’s Sin City

gem had never seen Sin City and wanted to watch it, so I borrowed it from my brother on Sunday. We watched it last night. Wow, I forgot just how good it is! It’s like a dark, film noir playground in which Miller can explore his fantasies.

The first thing I notice is how great the casting is. Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, and Bruce Willis were all great. I didn’t even notice that Kevin was Elijah Wood, who also did an excellent job, until gem pointed it out to me.

I love how the film captures the feeling of a comic book. The stylized use of color to highlight and accentuate was obviously used throughout the film. Even the stark white bandages on Marv’s face stood out from the rest of the scene. I absolutely loved the large, fat drops of white rain on a dark background, coming down almost like a solid sheet. Noir fiction couldn’t be noir without heavy rain, right? I just loved the style.

According to Wikipedia, Sin City 2 will be released this coming October. I really need to read those graphic novels.