Oldest Solar System Discovered - Yahoo News

Picture: Yahoo News
This article, posted to Yahoo News, is exciting and terrifying at the same time. In short, the Kepler planet hunting probe has discovered a star that is 11 billion years old, with five small rocky planets orbiting it.

An international team of astronomers announced Tuesday that this extrasolar system is 11.2 billion years old. With the age of the universe pegged at 13.8 billion years, this is the oldest star with close-to-Earth-size planets ever found ... Read more

You See Disability - I See Cyberpunk

This video came out the weekend of December 13/14, 2014, on ITV.

It had been bought and paid for by Channel Four, who were making a point about the banal crap that ITV were foisting on everyone.


Yes, Viktoria Modesta is real.

Yes, those are prostheses she is wearing.

No, she only has one completely organic leg.

Yes, her left leg is missing below the knee.

Viktoria had it cut off when she was 20.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the cyberpunk universe.

Teal'c

This scene was one of Stargate SG-1's funniest ever moments, from Season 10 episode 18, "Family Ties." Teal'c (Christopher Judge) is given tickets to this theatrical play by Jacek (Fred Willard), Vala Mal Doran's (Claudia Black) father, and he decides to take in some Earth culture.

Jacek describes the play as "The Virginia Dialogues."


On a sad note, the show's producers knew by now that the show was at an end, so clearly they no longer gave a flying one about the use of the word "vagina" in a network TV programme, and the possible breaking of taboos that might have ensued. On the other hand, this gave me the biggest belly laugh I had had in years, when I first saw it.

BBC Space Odyssey: A Voyage To The Planets, Part 2

Here is part 2. Part 1 is back here.

In the US version of this show, the crew of Pegasus gave up at Saturn. This is the full version, where after Saturn the crew went on to visit Pluto and a comet before coming home.

This was broadcast two years before the IAU lost their marbles and voted Pluto out of the lineup of planets. This episode has the full Pluto segment, unaired in the States.

A transient glitch occurs between 38:47 and 38:56, where the footage skips back unexpectedly to a segment in the Saturn chapter.

BBC Space Odyssey: A Voyage To The Planets, Part 1

This is the show that I posted several links about in my sister blog, To Scape The Serpent's Tongue.

Here is part 1. Go here for Part 2.

William Shakespeare's Stargate SG-1

Stargate SG-1, as penned by William Shakespeare. Taken from The Season of The Tenth, Part Seven.

Act III, Scene 1.

[A planet's surface. MITCHELL, TEAL'C and DANIEL JACKSON stand beside a Stargate.]

[Divers alarums as the Stargate activates.]

Mitchell: Behold! Through yonder ancient metal ring
a company of dread Jaffa arrives.

[Enter Jaffa, stage left]

Jaffa: Where are the Tau'ri who would dare to mock
our Master Ba'al, who would be God of all?

Teal'c: Behold, Ba'al's folly, vanity and greed.
Join us. Renounce Ba'al, and be free.

Daniel: Indeed.

Teal'c: Thou stealest my line.

Daniel: My apologies.

Jaffa: Detain them, my brothers!

[Jaffa zat SG-1]

Daniel: Ai! We are struck! [falls]

Jaffa: 'Tis but a stunning strike, you nincompoop.
Though were a second strike to land on you
'Twould be a fatal blow.

Teal'c: It would indeed. [falls]

What We Do In The Shadows - New Zealand Vampire Flick

I have got to see this film.

Beyond The Night, by Rachel Luttrell - Video

This is the song sung by Rachel Luttrell in the season 2 episode of Stargate Atlantis, "Critical Mass." Music by Joel Goldsmith.

Boarding Pass To Mars

Boarding passes for the Orion flight test.









Deadline 2014 10 31. Get your ass to Mars.

Space: 1999 Breakaway Day Commemorative Post

Today marks fifteen years since September 13, 1999. Breakaway Day.

The fateful day, back in 1999, when Nuclear Waste Dump 2 exploded, sending Moonbase Alpha and the Moon hurtling out into the void on its random trajectory to an unknown and unknowable fate.

This post will be bookmarked and reposted every year on this date.

In memory of the 311 brave souls aboard Moonbase Alpha.

Shadownessence Returns

Is there a plan for re-growth of my old haunt, Shadownessence?
There is now - at least a plan to restart the forum and bring the population back.
It starts with publicising the site wherever we all have accounts: Facebook, G+, tumblr, my blogs. Anywhere and everywhere.
And this is what the forumites of SnE will be doing this weekend.
Starting here.
Are you a fan of the Old World of Darkness (oWoD), the reboot World of Darkness from 2004 and any of the games old and new? In times gone by, SnE was THE place to go to air your views and share your delight at these shared worlds of Storytelling horror.
Now, after a prolonged absence, Shadownessence has returned - and the forum is eager for fresh blood.
So if you want to know what is going on with the WoD 20th Anniversary Edition games, or the 10th Anniversary release of the new WoD in the form of WoD Second Edition, why not join us at Shadownessence - or renew your old, dusty accounts and come back to restoke the old Balefire again?
Our long Winter now is over. Spring is coming for Shadownessence. Join us and watch our long-awaited reawakening.

Doctor Who For Non - Whovians

A lot of people watched Doctor Who on the BBC for the very first time on Saturday 2014 08 23. Some of them might wonder what in the ever-living they just saw.

Here's a brief-ish explanation.

Doctor Who is a British TV show created by Verity Lambert in the Sixties for the BBC. She wanted to come up with a show which was educational and yet entertaining and adventurous. The concept evolved into its present incarnation over more than fifty years, which in and of itself is a record for television programmes.

Doctor Who chronicles the adventures of The Doctor, an alien not born of this Earth, who nevertheless finds our world fascinating because he loves our species Homo sapiens for some unfathomable reason. The Doctor comes from a world called Gallifrey in a binary star system within the constellation of Kasterborous. The Doctor is what is known to the universe at large as a Time Lord.


Gallifrey, brought adjacent to Earth in the episode "The End of Time"

Arcadia, the capital of Gallifrey, and a Time Lord
The Doctor wanders throughout Time and Space, visiting different worlds in distant galaxies at various points in Time. His vessel is called the TARDIS, a time machine. TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Time Lord technology, the most advanced technology in the universe, allows the TARDIS' true vast size to be placed in a transdimensional pocket; the part of the TARDIS that appears to the outside viewer looks like an old-fashioned blue British police telephone box.

The TARDIS was originally capable of changing into objects which matched the environment and era - large boulders, a freestanding pillar, a tree - but after landing in London in 1963, its chameleon circuit permanently fried leaving it stuck in the form which has become an iconic design, based on the design of the old-fashioned blue landline telephone booths set up on street corners in the Fifties and Sixties for people and police to report crimes.


TARDIS exterior
The interior of the TARDIS is vast, with corridors and rooms stretching outward in all directions - the vessel has often boasted a library, wardrobe and swimming pool at various times - but most of the time when the story takes place inside the TARDIS the only room you get to see is its bridge or Control Room, which always has a six-sided central table surrounding a Time Rotor, which oscillates up and down or rotates when the TARDIS is in motion.




The Doctor likes to change the interior of his TARDIS now and then like swapping out a desktop
Some other aspects of The Doctor's life which are established in the ongoing legend:-

Companions: The Doctor is usually accompanied by a succession of mostly human Companions. They come and they go. Occasionally, they die in his care, which leaves him devastated for prolonged periods. Without his Companions, The Doctor is practically helpless. With a Companion in tow, he is unstoppable.

Intellect: As a Time Lord, The Doctor's intellect is vast - beyond human genius. Despite that, he still makes mistakes. Sometimes, people and even whole species die as a result of these mistakes. He is also mildly telepathic, able to perform minor telepathic tricks on occasion. His strongest telepathic link is with the TARDIS, which also has a telepathic translation circuit - a convenient device to ensure that every alien encountered in the show speaks fluent English to the viewer.

Tools: The Doctor usually has with him a device called a sonic screwdriver. It is not a weapon. The worst he can do to someone with this device is assemble a flatpack cabinet at them.

Alien Physiology: The Doctor, as a Gallifreyan, has two hearts and is practically immortal. He can wear the same face for centuries, only gradually physically aging - he was still a child at the age of 98, was a teenager for about fifty years, and has gone through spans of linear time longer than entire human lifespans without getting visibly older. One Time Lord once commented how, barring accidents, a Time Lord could live for around ten thousand years. The Doctor himself commented that he could "live forever." The Doctor has been 500, 700, 900, 1200 and - in his current form - two thousand years old.

Regenerations: And when an accident does occur which could kill The Doctor, this Time Lord has one ultimate trick up his sleeve. He can regenerate.

Regeneration, for a Time Lord, does not mean that his wounds seal up as if he had some sort of healing factor. Regeneration means that the Time Lord undergoes a complete metamorphosis, shedding his old form in a blast of golden energy and adopting a brand new form with a wholly different body, face, features and personality. Regenerations tend to usher in a whole new era of adventures for The Doctor and his Companions, each with their own unique feel to them.

The only limit to this is the number of regenerations available to Time Lords: until 2014, no Time Lord could regenerate more than twelve times, his thirteenth regeneration being his last - the regeneration in which he really could die forever.

At various times, The Doctor has been portrayed by a number of actors, whose names and line of succession is as important to us Brits and Whovians as the names of the historical Kings and Queens of England:-

William Hartnell ("One") (1963 11 23 – 1966 10 29)

Patrick Troughton ("Two") (1966 10 29 – 1969 06 21)

Jon Pertwee ("Three") (1970 03 01 – 1974 06 08)

Tom Baker ("Four") (1974 06 08 – 1981 03 21)

Peter Davison ("Five") (1981 03 21 – 1984 03 16)

Colin Baker ("Six") (1984 03 16 – 1986 12 06)

Sylvester McCoy ("Seven") (1987 09 07 – 1989 12 06)

Paul McGann ("Eight") (1996 05 27 and 2013 11 14)

John Hurt ("War") (2013 05 18 and 2013 11 23)

Christopher Eccleston ("Nine") (2005 03 26 – 2005 06 18)

David Tennant ("Ten") (2005 06 18 – 2010 01 01 and 2013 11 23)

Matt Smith ("Eleven") (2010 01 01 – 2013 12 25)

Peter Capaldi ("Twelve") (2013 11 23 and 2013 12 25, then 2014 08 23 – the present)

Monsters: The Doctor regularly faces off against a vast array of often-terrifying alien species, most of which seem to be bent on dominating the universe, conquering various species or simply annihilating everything living that is not of their kind. These monsters include:-

Daleks - xenophobic mutated creatures, little more than blobs of jelly with tentacles, encased within terrifying mobile war machines. Their ultimate goal is to eliminate all sentient life that is not Dalek. Their characteristic war cry is an electronic scream - "EXTERMINATE!"


Cybermen - originally humans from a planet described as "Earth's twin planet" Mondas, Cybermen gradually came about as a result of cybernetics gone horribly out of control, resulting in the species turning into monstrous metallic armoured cyborgs with, again, a small amount of humanoid matter inside them. Cybermen are more machine than man, and they are twisted and evil because of their drive to assimilate ("upgrade") anything that moves to turn their victims into more Cybermen.


Sontarans - A short, spud-headed cloned species, Sontarans are hatched for one purpose only: war and conquest. In the Victorian London setting which Doctor Who occasionally visits, Madam Vashtra's butler Strax is a Sontaran, genetically modified for medic duties yet incapable of completely forgetting his warrior ethic.


Silurians - The original dominant sentient species on Earth, the Silurians were forced into space or into deep hibernation by the extinction level event on Earth during the late Cretaceous which brought about the end of the era of the dinosaurs. This race of sentient reptilians, living dinosaurs themselves, believe themselves to be the true rulers of the Earth, with humans being a bit of a vulgar Johnny-come-lately; after all, the only mammals on the Earth when they once rules were the ratlike egg thieves which occasionally infested their nurseries, and primates hadn't even evolved yet.

Madam Vashtra in the Victorian London setting is one such Silurian. She is happily married to a human, Jenny.


Weeping Angels: Cruel aliens from the dawn of the universe that look like statues, these terrifying assassins have a powerful defence mechanism - they are quantum-locked. For as long as they are observed, they turn into stone, but once they are not observed they move like lightning. And whatever they touch ends up stuck in the past, where they are forced to live out their lives and die while the Angel feasts off the lost life that would have been lived. In a cruel twist of fate, the victim only lives long enough to die at the exact moment he or she got sent back into the past. Don't blink. Blink, and you're dead.


But by far the most monstrous aliens The Doctor encounters in his travels are, in fact, the worst aliens of them all.

Human: Sometimes, the most alien creature in the universe, alien even to The Doctor, is a vain, greedy or ambitious human. They can be found everywhere in the Doctor Who universe; and they are often responsible for some of the worst and ugliest things to ever happen on the show.

So that is Doctor Who in a nutshell for non-Whovians. Please sit back and enjoy the show, and remember - the weirdness you see has been brewing for more than fifty years. So it is going to be a pretty heady rush.

Deep Breath - The New Doctor Who

So as the new Doctor Who begins, round about the time this blog post goes live, Peter Capaldi will be starting to do his thing, strutting about the TARDIS, taking on the role and making it his own.

And then there is the title sequence, which could well look like this:-

Doctor Who Title Sequence Concept from Billy Hanshaw on Vimeo.

Source: the BBC.

In fact, the theme sequence turned out remarkably similar:-

Diamonds for Tea: When I Again Met Emma Frost - A Tumblr Challenge, Part 2

This is the second part of the tumblr challenge.

Diamonds for Tea

Later, they set up the board for another game, this time outside on the porch. It was a beautiful, wide wooden porch, the floorboards carefully varnished and polished, solid and reassuring as the support posts and the wide overhead awning. They sat opposite one another, the chessboard resting on a small table between them, and another table off to the side with the tea things.

'Matcha,' Alex said to Emma. 'My sister got a large quantity of it from a Chinese student at the place where she worked. Kilos of the stuff. The student couldn't get rid of it - apparently she's the only Chinese girl in the world who can't stand tea, but her Mum was insistent - and Jules, my sister, hadn't a clue how to brew the stuff.'

'But you do,' Emma replied.

'I know things,' Alex said. 'If I don't get it from Google, and my Google-fu is very strong, I can download it from people's minds, usually just from observing what they do and learning very quickly - and the German students Jules looks after know how to prepare green tea better than the Japanese do.'

Emma grinned. 'You're not the only one who can download knowledge,' she replied.

'But it's the usage of that knowledge,' Alex said, excitement lending passion to his words, 'that honours their contribution.'

'You're an innovator,' Emma replied. 'Check and mate. H'mm. Clearly your knowledge never extended to chess.'

'Indeed,' Alex replied. 'I only play to stalemate. It's an very annoying game I play,' he added, grinning. 'My opponents always seek to win, and I just play to block them, collapse their traps and generally faff around with them.'

'I noticed,' Emma replied. 'What's that tune in your head?'

'Jean-Michel Jarre, "Magnetic Fields 2, La Defense," 14 July 1989, the concert celebrating the 200th Bastille Day,' Alex responded.

'You play it in your head as if you had been there,' Emma said.

'I wish,' Alex replied. 'Top up?'

'Thank you,' Emma said, holding out her dainty cup. Alex poured the fragrant green tea into her cup from the ornate brass Turkish teapot. 'It is delicious,' she said, sipping it.

'Thank you,' Alex replied. 'A friend of mine over in Texas is an avowed tea addict. We both can't get enough of the stuff.'

'What's her name?'

'Tracy.'

'Have you met her?'

'Not yet,' Alex replied. He paused. Emma frowned.

'I caught that thought,' she said. 'You stopped playing that music in your mind and thought about her. That was not something I thought I'd hear in a non-telepath's mind. You love her very much.'

'I do, that,' Alex replied. 'I put "married in spirit" on my status on Yahoo Messenger in response to something she once said in passing.' He sipped his tea. 'I would do anything for her.'

'So you should. And you organise your thoughts like one of us. Did you know that?'

'Thank you,' Alex said. 'That is a great compliment.'

'Do I hear "coming from you" in that sentence somewhere?'

'Not at all, Miss Frost,' Alex said, raising his cup to sip at its steaming, delicate contents, his eyes closed. 'I wish I could smell this. I really do wish I had a sense of smell.' He looked at her. 'I never add qualifiers like that to my sentences. I strive, as a writer, orator and hypnotist, for precision in my words. I edit them very quickly, in their journey between my brain and my mouth - because, you know, once out of my mouth there is never any recalling them.'

'I never caught your answer to the question I posed earlier,' Emma asked. 'What do you think of mutants?'

'If they were loyal to you and your chap, that Cyclops, Scott Summers fellow,' Alex replied, 'they could take shelter from the storm in my place any time.' He looked at her. 'No strings attached.'

'Why would you consider such a thing?'

'Because he is on the right side of history,' Alex responded, matter of factly.

A soft, gentle rain began to fall in the garden beyond the porch. Emma and Alex turned to look at it.

'I've never met a human like you,' Emma murmured. 'You charm people. You write the way you speak. I've read your material - I took a peek at your Kobo ereader earlier, while I was putting away the dishes. You'd left it lying in the kitchen.

'You write erotica that turns me on, frankly. And those fantasy stories you've been writing - The Shadowed Art, The Silver Touch - that protagonist of yours, Seren Mai ... please tell me she's not modelled on me.'

Alex shook his head. 'No more than Osric is modelled after me,' he replied. 'I was crafting Seren Mai of Anfar and writing her stories long before I ever heard of you.'

'That is a relief,' Emma said, relaxing and sitting back, nursing her tea in her hands, cradled on her lap. 'As I said, you charm people with your words. You seduce, tease - and yes, you hypnotise. Often without your even knowing it.'

'Ah,' Alex said. 'That is where you are inaccurate. I do know it, which is why I always chop off most of my casual conversations with people on the street within about twenty seconds. Bare matter of fact. Otherwise I believe I would be hypnotising practically anybody I spoke to.'

'Fascinating,' Emma said.

'It's my voice,' Alex replied. 'I ... do things with it.'

Emma nodded. 'But you're not hypnotising me,' she said.

'Of course not,' Alex said. 'I'm talking to an equal, and while the thought of taking you to bed with me does appeal ... I'd rather stay on this side of that barrier, not because you love your man - which is disincentive enough for me to try, man of honour that I am - but because your trust is more important to me than your passion.'

'You are a strange man,' Emma said.

'Thank you,' Alex replied. 'I would rue the day that I ever became ordinary.'

'You are a master seducer,' Emma said. 'However, you remain steadfastly single. You could have anyone you turned your heart to ... yet here you are, unpartnered. Why do you think that is so?'

Alex's face grew serious. He sipped his tea. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Maybe I don't want anyone to know me that well. Or I might be afraid of being the one to let go and trust others. I was hurt, you know. As a child. Bullied at school. I never really learned the art of making true friends until late in my life. In a way, I am still playing catchup with everybody else who learned that skill at the proper time in their childhoods.'

'I never knew,' Emma whispered, reaching across the chessboard to touch Alex's cheek. At the point of contact with her cool, slender fingers, Alex allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and pretend, just for a tiny moment, that there was something there other than compassion.

Then she withdrew her hand, and Alex opened his eyes and looked at her again.

'It is true,' she said. 'It does get very lonely for men like you.'

Alex nodded, his expression blank. 'Tell me about it,' he said. He brightened. 'However, I do manage to get along,' he said, finishing his tea. 'Even if it is just a brave face - one which you only saw through because you can know my mind better than most.'

'Perhaps you will, one day, meet that woman who resonates in your soul,' Emma said.

'I ... I don't know any more,' Alex replied, his eyes open and honest, looking at her. 'I might have maybe twenty years left to me. Thirty, forty, if I live to my parents' age and remain as fit as they are at their age. But would anyone be expected to live with me as I grow old and age and eventually die during that time?'

'Even Tracy?'

'Only if she would bear to be near me during my autumn and winter years,' Alex replied. 'We're closer than friends ... closer than family. Both of us are Trickster priests, and I do believe neither of us has any illusion about us getting out of this world alive. I just hope that for each of us, our time together on this earth will be livened by the other's presence for as long as we both last.'

'And through the lousiest luck, you're separated by an ocean,' Emma replied. Alex nodded.

Emma's eyes softened. Once more, she reached for his face with her slender hand. 'I am so sorry,' she whispered. 'Let me make it up to you.'

'How?'

'Let me show you,' she replied. 'Close your eyes.'

Alex closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was a lot warmer. There was a floral scent in the air. The light was the wrong colour. It was not raining. Emma stood beside him, and her clothes looked different, somehow.

'You look different,' Alex said. 'My lips didn't move.'

'You're not really here,' Emma replied, her lips also not moving. 'Your spirit is here, and you can sense everything happening here as if you were present, flesh and blood - but your body is still sitting in Wales.'

Alex sniffed. He beamed. 'I can smell roses,' he said. 'I can smell roses!' His face wrinkled. He gasped. 'And the fertiliser that goes on them,' he said. 'If my eyes could water right now ...'

Emma chuckled telepathically. 'Enjoy your sense of smell, Mr Greene,' she said. 'Would you like to know where you are?'

'If I had to hazard a guess,' Alex said, looking around, 'I'd say that, judging by the resemblance to the photos I've seen, this has got to be Tracy's place in San Marcos, Texas.'

'Spot on,' Emma replied, smiling. 'And right about now, your friend is inside that apartment there.' She pointed to the front door. 'Shall we go in? I can make you visible to your friend, by allowing her to sense astral projections. She will be able to see you and sense you, touch your skin and it will all feel as warm and natural as if you were there. I'll also do the same for me.'

'She will jump out of her skin if she sees you,' Alex said. 'And then I think she will probably squee and run around her apartment for a good fifteen minutes. Confuse the hell out her furkids.'

Emma chuckled. 'Occupational hazards,' she said. 'Please. Lead on.'

'Right, then,' Alex said, straightening his shoulders. He marched up to the door of Tracy's apartment, and knocked ...

Mongoose Traveller Book 10: Cosmopolite - eBook Out Today

Book 10: Cosmopolite for Mongoose Traveller is now available from DrivtThruRPG in eBook form.

Get your copy here!

Civilisations stand and fall, not by might of arms, but by its cosmopolites – the ordinary Citizens and Scholars who make up most of the population.

Book 10: Cosmopolite provides new options and possibilities for characters who have followed the Citizen or Scholar careers. Citizens and Scholars together are keepers of the flame of civilisation.

With this book, your Citizen character will be able to build Networks, a web of Allies, Contacts and Patrons that can be called upon at any time, while Scholar characters can approach their own societies and fellowships for funding and resources accessible only to scientists.

Your characters can now attend University or Medical School, and try a brand new career choice, the Teacher. You will learn how to continue your research, even while you travel the galaxy, publishing papers that push the boundaries of known science.

The referee is provided with all the support material he will need for Citizens and Scholars, from organisations that can act as adventure hooks or Patrons, to scientific questions that have stumped Scholars across Known Space and are now available for players to tackle!

Far from being simple white or blue collar workers, or unassuming librarian types, Book 10: Cosmopolite contains everything you need to make Citizens and Scholars among the most exciting careers to play in Traveller.

When I Met Emma Frost - A Tumblr Challenge, Part 1

The following was a tumblr challenge. Write a favourite friend into a story with one of your favourite characters. This was my friend's post. My post is tomorrow at this time.

When Alex Met Emma Frost

Emma’s icy gaze met Alex’s over the top of her tea cup, then she glanced down at the chessboard.

“If you make that move, I’ll checkmate and win the third match in a row,” she told him.

“And you just changed the subject, Ms. Frost,” the sandy-haired Welshman retorted, his eyes traveling up her long, jean-clad leg to the wedge of bare midriff.

Emma smirked. “I thought it was a moot point, Mr. Greene. Regardless of what that imbecile Bendis has done, my heart belongs to one man. I’m biding my time.”

Alex considered his moves and backed away from the one, coming at the game from another angle. He nudged his rook up the board and conquered one of the bishops. “So then, what you’re saying is that you wouldn’t even consider the teeniest tumble while you’re still a free agent?”

“Darling,” she began as she leaned forward and settled her cup back on the table, her elbows on her knees, giving the man across from her a distracting view as she considered which of the moves she wanted to make. “I’m never *free*, and for all of your intellect, wit, and adorable smiles, you still couldn’t afford me.”

Emma Frost bared her predator’s smile and moved her Queen to take Alex’s last remaining knight. “And that’s checkmate, handsome,” she announced then rose to her feet. She leaned over and kissed Alex’s cheek, leaving a smudge of spring rose on his skin. She collected their cups and sauntered toward the service on the other table.

“More tea and another match?”

(T.L. Henry, 19 March 2013)
— sheisstrangerthanfiction

The Blood Path on DriveThruRPG (Christmas In July 2014)

As part of their annual "Christmas In July" promotion, DriveThruRPG offer a selection of games at knockdown prices.

This year, Abbott & Greene join them by offering The Blood Path at $0.99.

The Blood Path

The Blood Path

Of all the enemies player characters love to engage in roleplaying games, no more popular enemy exists than orcs. A default enemy, an excuse to have the characters make use of their combat moves, orcs are a staple monster in many tabletop fantasy roleplaying games.

Modern MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft have begun to challenge this attitude, making orcs over as the honourable Klingons of fantasy roleplaying games; but the Monsters of Legend and Cities of Legend: Skarr, City of Orcs sourcebooks still cast them in the same old light – as monsters.

All that changes here.

A chance encounter by the roadside involves the adventurers with a party of orcs on The Blood Path, a sacred quest for vengeance. But things are never quite what they seem...

Will the orcs prove friend or foe?

Can the adventurers thwart an evil that if released has the potential to claim thousands of lives – orc and human alike?

Follow The Blood Path and forge your Legend.

The vision of William Gibson finally came true. The link below leads to a map.

The map of the internet.

Behold, Cyberspace.

Here's the overall view.



And now the core systems, these big circles standing out like great gas giants each with tiny satellite sites clustering around them like moonlets.





Here's a closeup of the systems orbiting between Facebook.com and the tiny moonlet google.co.uk.







This is Twitter, lurking curiously far out of centre and looking surprisingly small compared to its big cousins.



And now a look at some of the other regions, starting with the Russian region:-



Next, one of the Chinese - dominated regions:-



And that is followed by the violet lights of the Japanese arm:-



Just on the off chance, I thought I'd type in an obscure web address to see if it was on the map. Behold.



There are some oddities. For instance, why is Wikipedia.org positioned so far out from the main core systems?



There is also a large outlier, far off to spinward. You have no idea what it is till you get close enough to make out the id. To my surprise, this far-flung outlier out in the Oort Cloud of the map of the internet turns out to be Wordpress. And it's further out on the fringe than Linkedin:-





The other big outlier is go.com, but when you get close to that site, you note that in between all those bright blue dots are clusters of tiny red embers, like someone had scattered the contents of a burning brazier:-





A bit of a deep drill next, going down to the level of the randomly-picked Amazon.cn site to see the tiny little sites nearby. Most of the rest of these shots are just general sightseeing.







This last one is a closeup of the cloud of sites clustered between the vast google.com and its diminutive Indian counterpart google.co.in, observing how they are suspended between these much larger island websites like droplets of ionised oil drops in a Millikan's experiment chamber.




All right. Tour's over, folks. This way please, to the exit and the little souvenir shop. Our cafe opposite the gift shop stands ready to serve you a wide range of inexpensive yer delicious refreshments. Please kindly consider putting a small donation in the box on your way out. Your kindness and generosity would be most appreciated. Thank you.

Foreboding Scenes: Balin's Tomb

This second scene from Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring is also full of foreboding.


"Drums. Drums in the deep."

Foreboding Scenes: Lord of The Rings

Some scenes from movies just fill one with foreboding. This was one of those scenes.