Mh rise layered armor event quests
[H] 300+ Games [W] Steam Marketable Items (Cases, Gems, Keys, Skins, Trading Cards etc) and Wishlist
2023.05.30 22:36 Vulcann111 [H] 300+ Games [W] Steam Marketable Items (Cases, Gems, Keys, Skins, Trading Cards etc) and Wishlist
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2023.05.30 21:07 IceQueenWeiss Selling epic games account + coupon 25% expire june 15
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submitted by
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2023.05.30 20:59 LiteraryHedgehog Megathread: Camp and Chill Event, May 30-June 1
A new Camp and Chill Event starts today! This 2 day event will run from Tuesday, May 30 until 19:00 GMT Thursday, June 1, and is open to all players with version 10.2.1 or above, a minimum of 250 dragon power, and a stable and reliable internet connection.
Points are earned by tapping items, opening chests, and other simple tasks completed in Camp. The Event Capsule Store appears after earning 500 points; free Bronze Capsules containing Event Points can be collected every 3 hours after that.
NOTES:
- A small number of players are testing a new Egg Storage feature; for more info, here is the initial post from last Wednesday, the most active thread during Friday’s initial beta tester rollout, and the official website’s new Egg Storage info section.
- A calendar of 2023’s past and projected events has been posted.
Good luck and happy merging! EVENT PRIZES
- Sprouting Dragon Tree, lvl 2 - requires earning 70 points
- Prism Flower Buds, lvl 2 - 1,290p
- Blue Belly Shrooms, lvl 5 - 1,840p
- Daily Chest (Super Egg Fragment) - 3,190p
- Watering Hole, lvl 5 - 4,790p
- Aged Glowing Dragon Tree, lvl 4 - 6,420p
- Nice Zen Temple, lvl 3 - 7,990p
- Golden Sapling, lvl 2 - 9,610p
- Seth Dragon Kid, lvl 2 - 11,210p
- Deer Dragon Kid, lvl 2 - 13,590p
Total to collect all prizes: 60,000 points
STRATEGY TIPS
This is the only type of event where point producing items can be stockpiled ahead of time; for info and links to guides on bubbling as a storage option, please visit the
Community FAQ.
The following are the most efficient or popular ways to earn points: - Tier 2 nests of most breeds yield 900 points per tap, for a total of 3,600 to 6,300 points per nest.
- High level Goal Stars are an excellent source of points; the exact number of taps available varies by level and random chance.
- L6 Star- 1056, L5 Star- 330, L4 Star- 99
- Level 2 Materials Chests offer unlimited quick and easy points; stockpiling stone bricks gives more flexibility than buying specific chests ahead of time:
- Spectral Chest- 1305, Summoned Chest- 820, Chest of Beasts- 300, Solid Gold Chest- 80, Phobos Chest- 40
- Higher level free chests all yield well:
- Treasure: L7- 1690, L6- 530, L5- 165, L4- 50
- Grimm: L4- 792, L3- 240, L2- 72
- Season: L4- 330, L3- 100, L2- 30
- Bountiful (Level) Chests- 150
- Kala’s Rucksacks- 250
- High level Life Trees can be harvested for quick points:
- Life Orbs: L9- 1560, L8- 500, L7- 160, L6- 50
- These chains recharge fast and give unlimited taps; note that multiple mid-level items may earn more than one or two higher-level items.
- Fruit Trees: L10 Watermelon- 34, L9 Pineapple- 30, L8 Dragon Fruit- 26, L7 Pear- 23,
- Prism Flowers: L7- 42, L6- 36, L5- 29, L4- 23
- Midas Trees: L11- 145, L10- 135, L9- 125, L8- 115, L7- 105, L6- 95, L5- 85, L4- 75, L3- 65, L2- 55
- Bushes: L5- 35, L4- 25, L3- 15
- Graves: L8- 75, L7- 65, L6- 55, L5- 45, L4- 35
- Fountains: L6- 136, L5- 105, L4- 75, L3- 45
ITEM POINTS
Alien Obelisks (Requires cash purchase) - Alien Obelisk - 45
- Radioactive Alien Obelisk - 135
- Pulsing Alien Obelisk - 450
- Galactic Alien Megalith - 1485
Bushes - Tiny Cabin - 10
- L1 Shrub Sprout - 1
- L2 Budding Shrub - 5
- L3 Nice Shrub - 15
- L4 Flowering Shrub - 25
- L5 Gorgeous Shrub - 35
Fruit Trees - L4 Grape Tree - 10
- L5 Raspberry Tree - 14
- L6 Banana Tree - 18
- L7 Pear Tree - 23
- L8 Dragon Fruit Tree - 26
- L9 Pineapple Tree - 30
- L10 Watermelon Tree - 34
Goal Stars and Dragon Stars (points per tap) - L1 Star - 3 (2-3 taps)
- L2 Star - 9 (2-3 taps)
- L3 Star - 30 (3-4 taps)
- L4 Star - 99 (3-4 taps)
- L5 Star - 330 (3-4 taps)
- L6 Star - 1056 (6-7 taps)
- L1 Dragon Star - 30 (2-4 taps)
- L2 Magnificent Dragon Star - 90 (7-11 taps)
Graves - L4 Doom Cross - 35
- L5 Fiend’s Resting Place - 45
- L6 Tomb of the Innocent - 55
- L7 Tomb of the Forgiven - 65
- L8 Tomb of the Righteous - 75
Life Orbs (single tap) - L0 Life Essence - 1
- L1 Tiny Life Orb - 1
- L2 Small Life Orb - 2
- L3 Life Orb - 3
- L4 Furious Life Orb - 5
- L5 Wondrous Life Orb - 15
- L6 Great Life Orb - 50
- L7 Giant Life Orb - 160
- L8 Life Orb of Souls - 500
- L9 The Life Orb of Heavens - 1560
Midas Trees - L2 Golden Sapling - 55
- L3 Golden Tree - 65
- L4 Midas Tree - 75
- L5 Glowing Midas Tree - 85
- L6 The Orb Holder - 95
- L7 The Crystal Catcher - 105
- L8 The Moon Bearer - 115
- L9 The Star Mother - 125
- L10 Greater Midas Tree - 135
- L11 Divine Midas Tree - 145
MonsteMythical Idols (single tap) - L1 Kattryx - 3
- L2 Guardian Sphinx - 9
- L3 Young Cerberus - 30
- L4 Noble Gryphon - 99
- L5 Mythical Ogopogo - 330
- L1 Gromblin - 5
- L2 Capricorn - 15
- L3 Dragon Idol - 50
- L4 Rising Phoenix - 165
- L5 Mythical Pegasus - 550
Mystic Topiaries (single use only, number of taps depends on level) - L1 Bunny - 10 (1x tap)
- L2 Bear - 90 (1x tap)
- L3 Rex - 150 (2x taps)
- L4 Swan - 250 (3x taps)
- L5 Seahorse - 550 (5x taps)
- L6 Dolphin - 880 (10x taps)
Nests/Eggs - Tier 1 nest - 20 per tap, 60 to 140 total
- Tier 2 nest - 900 per tap, 3,600 to 6,300 total (Star Dragons may not register)
- Mystery Egg Nests - 10 per tap, 40 to 70 total
- Supernest - 20 per tap
- Meganest - 10 per tap (needs rechecking)
- Ultranests - 10 per tap (needs rechecking)
- Activated Super Eggs - 600 (30 per dragon)
Prism Flowers - L1 Sprouting Prism Flower - 3
- L2 Prism Flower Buds - 10
- L3 Opening Prism Flowers - 16
- L4 Prism Flowers - 23
- L5 Blossoming Prism Flowers - 29
- L6 Gorgeous Prism Flowers - 36
- L7 Brilliant Prism Flowers - 42
- L8 Spectral Prism Flowers - 49
- L9 Glowing Prism Flowers - 55
ShimmeSecret Fountains - L1 Fountain of Legend - 3
- L2 Ancient Spring - 15
- L3 Shimmering Spring - 45
- L4 Fountain of Faith - 75
- L5 Fountain of Rebirth - 105
- L6 Heroic Dragon Spa - 135
- L1 Secret Lifespring - 30
- L2 Spectral Lifespring - 150
Coin Vaults and Stone Yards - L1 Tattered - 1
- L2 Basic - 5
- L3 Nice - 15
- L4 Great - 25
- L5 Opulent - 35
- L6 Mythical - 45
- L7 Gigantic - 55
- L8 Bottomless - 65
Chests (single tap only) Camp and Chill Event Items - Capsules - 0
- Pile of Camp Event Points - 5
- Great Rucksack of Event Points - 10 per tap, 20+ total
- Wondrous Chest of Event Points - 25 per tap, 125+ total
- Mythical Coffer of Event Points - 50 per tap, 450+ total
Miscellaneous Items Combo Merges Note: this is a partial list — most chains seem to work, with points increasing by item levels and length of chain. - Coins - 5, 10, 30, 60 (started with L2)
- Life Flowers - 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 (start w/L1)
- Life Flowers - 15, 40 (started w/L5)
- Life Orbs - 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 (Started w/ heart)
- Life Orbs - 5, 20, 45, 80 (started w/ L3)
- Living Stones - 5, 10, 15, 40 (start w/fresh stones)
- Stone bricks - 5, 10, 15, 40, 60 (start w/L1)
No Points TROUBLESHOOTING
If the event is not showing up or glitches are affecting your play:
- Try hard closing and then relaunching your game.
- If your device is running hot, stop playing and allow it to cool down.
- Try rebooting your device (ie, turn it completely off, then back on and allow it to fully boot up before relaunching the game).
- Try rebooting your wifi router (if you have access).
- Try switching to a completely different internet source.
- If you’re suddenly experiencing multiple issues like lagging or error messages, close the game and try again after an hour or two; events are server-based, and sometimes activity on that end can cause temporary problems.
- If nothing here helps, contact Gram Games Support through the in-game link or the official website for help figuring out what’s wrong.
General Technical Warnings:
- Cloud Save is still unreliable: according to the developer, it is not safe to be used and should be left turned off.
- Den Chests: To reduce your risk of missing chests or uncounted points, avoid playing while game servers are processing the cycle change.
- Saving your Progress: Make sure you travel to the World Map screen before closing your game to save your progress; saving immediately after earning or making high-value items is also recommended.
Note: All initial event info is preliminary, based off what we’ve had in prior editions. Edits are ongoing submitted by
LiteraryHedgehog to
MergeDragons [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 20:43 Dami_24 Lag and CTDs inside cities and villages
I'm not sure for how long, but I have been getting a lot of fps drops inside cities and villages for a long time, man, I think even before I started my second recent playthrough.
I have replaced Jk's Skyrim with other mods such as Dawn of Skyrim and The Great Cities but it was not enough. I figured that maybe the polygon count was affecting my fps so I switched from PoeticAnt44's Pride of Skyrim AIO and Courageous Women AIO to Pandorable's whole npc's replacer series which doesn't use high poly head but rather racemenu sliders and others resources, and guess what? Still not enough to save me from that awful fps drop and constant ctd in cities.
Could it be a bad mesh? Or maybe script lag? I don't know, I'll just leave my load order here, pls help.
Load order:
Skyrim.esm
Update.esm
Dawnguard.esm
HearthFires.esm
Dragonborn.esm
ccbgssse001-fish.esm
RSkyrimChildren.esm
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp
Vanilla Script MicroOptimizations.esl
Occ_Skyrim_Tamriel.esp
DMCO.esl
DodgeFramework.esl
OCPA.esl
Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm
skymojibase.esl
TrueHUD.esl
Expressive Facegen Morphs.esl
High Poly Head.esm
RealisticWaterTwo - Resources.esm
Lux Orbis - Master plugin.esm
Lux - Master plugin.esm
Lux - Resources.esp
RASS - Visual Effects.esl
1NGarmor.esl
Resources - The Great Cities.esp
SkyUI_SE.esp
Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp
Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp
TrueStormsSE.esp
Obsidian Weathers.esp
AOS_ISC_Integration.esp
SMIM-SE-FarmhouseFlickeringFix.esp
SMIM-SE-FurnitureChestSnowFix.esp
Armor of Intrigue.esp
AHZmoreHUD.esp
Weapons Armor Clothing & Clutter Fixes.esp
VisualAnimatedEnchants2023.esp
Lux Orbis.esp
JK's College of Winterhold.esp
The Great Cities - Minor Cities and Towns.esp
Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods.esp
Relationship Dialogue Overhaul.esp
AI Overhaul.esp
Skyrim Immersive Creatures Special Edition.esp
MysticismMagic.esp
HoldGuardsKeepArmorSE.esp
SubsurfaceScatteringShader.esp
dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
AOS_EBT Patch.esp
Attack_DXP.esp
AttackSpeedConvert.esp
BetterThirdPersonSelection.esp
HotKeySkill.esp
BowRapidCombo.esp
CommunityOverlays1_0T30.esp
CommunityOverlays2_31T50.esp
CommunityOverlays3.esp
Conditional Expressions.esp
Craftable Locpicks - 10.esp
dD - Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic.esp
DiverseDragonsCollectionSE.esp
Elder Souls - sweep attack standalone.esp
ElSopa - Potions Redone - My patches by Xtudo - Falmer Blood Elixir.esp
ElSopa - Potions Redone - My patches by Xtudo - Missing Vanilla Potions.esp
EVGConditionalIdles.esp
Footprints.esp
SkyrimIsWindy.esp
HIMBO.esp
IcePenguinWorldMap.esp
ImmersiveInteractions.esp
Improved Eyes Skyrim - Vamp.esp
Improved Eyes Skyrim.esp
ImprovedAlternateConversationCamera.esp
JustBlood.esp
Keytrace.esp
KS Hairdo's.esp
Mannequins Behave.esp
MCMHelper.esp
MoonGlowSize.esp
NyghtfallMM.esp
Precision.esp
RaceMenu.esp
RaceMenuPlugin.esp
Realistic-Voice.esp
sandboxcylinderheight.esp
scar-adxp-patch.esp
Schlongs of Skyrim.esp
SFO_SkinFeatureOverlays.esp
SkyHUD.esp
skymoji.esp
Sleeping Expanded.esp
SLFR - Flare Effect.esp
SmoothCam.esp
SOS - Smurf Average Addon.esp
SOS - VectorPlexus Muscular Addon.esp
SOS - VectorPlexus Regular Addon.esp
TheEyesOfBeauty.esp
TrueDirectionalMovement.esp
UIExtensions.esp
UltimateCombat.esp
Use Those Blankets.esp
XPMSE.esp
FNIS.esp
DBVO.esp
KALA EYES ELVES.esp
BarenziahQuestMarkers.esp
AllThievesGuildJobsConcurrently.esp
SprintSlide.esp
BeastHHBB.esp
ORM-Arvak.esp
RSChildren.esp
LunarGuardArmor.esp
SLFR - Obsidian Weathers.esp
True Storms - Obsidian Weathers - Patch .esp
GoTDragonsEnemy.esp
dD-Medium Script Range.esp
EBT - IC PATCH.esp
KS Hairdos SMP for Men.esp
Dawn of Skyrim.esp
JK's Understone Keep.esp
JK's The Bards College.esp
JK's Castle Dour.esp
JK's Blue Palace.esp
JK's High Hrothgar.esp
JK's The Winking Skeever.esp
JK's Temple of the Divines.esp
JK's Sky Haven Temple.esp
JK's Arnleif and Sons Trading Company.esp
Odin - Skyrim Magic Overhaul.esp
JK's Jorrvaskr.esp
JK's Mistveil Keep.esp
JK's Haelga's Bunkhouse.esp
JK's Temple of Mara.esp
JK's Palace of the Kings.esp
JK's Temple of Dibella.esp
JK's The Hag's Cure.esp
WACCF_Armor and Clothing Extension.esp
JK's Sinderion's Field Laboratory.esp
JK's Dragonsreach.esp
JK's Silver-Blood Inn.esp
Stendarr Rising.esp
JK's Elgrims Elixirs.esp
JK's Bee and Barb.esp
Lux Orbis - Great Cities and Minor Towns patch.esp
JK's New Gnisis Cornerclub.esp
JK's The Pawned Prawn.esp
JKs Palace of the Kings - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Temple of Dibella - ACE Patch.esp
Player Spell Lighting.esp
JKs Dragonsreach - Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Patch.esp
Stendarr Rising - RDO patch.esp
Lit Road Signs.esp
0Kaidan.esp
BWB - Kaidan 2 Extra Dialogue.esp
Kaidan - Immersive Features.esp
PAN_AIO_big.esp
AmazingFollowerTweaks.esp
Embers XD.esp
JK's Riverwood Trader.esp
Lux Orbis - Dawn of Skyrim patch.esp
JK's Radiant Raiment.esp
Run For Your Lives.esp
Cloaks.esp
Inigo.esp
JK's The Bannered Mare.esp
JK's White Phial.esp
JK's Sleeping Giant Inn.esp
JK's Angelines Aromatics.esp
JK's Temple of Talos.esp
JK's Candlehearth Hall.esp
JK's The Ragged Flagon.esp
Arcanum.esp
JK's Septimus Signus's Outpost.esp
JK's Bits and Pieces.esp
JK's Arcadia's Cauldron.esp
JK's Sadris Used Wares.esp
JK's Temple of Kynareth.esp
Undriel_Ebongrove.esp
Skyrim Flora Overhaul.esp
Lux Orbis - Stendarr Rising.esp
Lux Orbis - CC Fish patch.esp
ForgottenCity.esp
Paragliding.esp
Eli_Dovah Vault.esp
Dawn of Skyrim - AI Overhaul Patch.esp
Embers XD - Patch - JKs Skyrim.esp
Missives.esp
JKs The Drunken Huntsman.esp
JKs Elgrims Elixirs - Bee and Barb Patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's High Hrothgar patch.esp
The Paarthurnax Dilemma.esp
Lux Orbis - USSEP patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's College patch.esp
My Home Is Your Home.esp
Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim.esp
Cloaks - Dawnguard.esp
Cloaks - USSEP Patch.esp
Cloaks_SMP_Patch.esp
JK's Belethor's General Goods.esp
JK's Warmaiden's.esp
JKs Temple of the Divines - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Understone Keep - USSEP patch.esp
JKs Angelines Aromatics - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Radiant Raiment - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Radiant Raiment - Cloaks Patch.esp
JKs Sinderions Field Laboratory - CC - Fishing patch.esp
JKs Bits and Pieces - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Septimus Signus Outpost - SIC Patch.esp
Paraglider Auto-Equip Tarhiel's Gale.esp
JKs Winking Skeever - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Winking Skeever - Fishing Patch.esp
Eli_CLBladeOfWoePatch.esp
JKs Arcadias Cauldron - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Palace of the Kings - Cloaks Patch.esp
JKs Ragged Flagon - USSEP Patch.esp
JKs Sadris Used Wares - ACE Patch.esp
JKs Temple of Talos - USSEP patch.esp
JKs Temple of Talos - ACE Patch.esp
JKs Temple of Talos - Cloaks of Skyrim patch.esp
JKs Drunken Huntsman - USSEP Patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Drunken Huntsman patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Bannered Mare patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Winking Skeever patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Bards College patch.esp
HighPolyInigo.esp
Embers XD - Fire Magick Add-On.esp
Embers XD - Patch - JKs Dragonsreach.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Bee and Barb patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Candlehearth Hall patch.esp
Lux Orbis - JK's Mistveil Keep patch.esp
Kaidan and Inigo Meet.esp
BarbWireBlondeJonSnowKaidan2.esp
LunarGuardArsenal_Battleaxe.esp
Skyland Watercolor - Slow Green-Vanilla.esp
Grass FPS Booster - SFO.esp
BWB - Kaidan 2 Dragon Bow.esp
GreatCitiesMissivesPatch.esp
PAN_NPCs.esp
PAN_NPCs_DG.esp
PAN_NPCs_DB.esp
PAN_NPCs_Males.esp
PAN_NPCs_Males2.esp
PAN_AIO_small.esp
PAN_LethalLadies.esp
PAN_Shieldsisters.esp
PAN_BlackBriar.esp
PAN_Brelyna.esp
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PAN_MarvellousMiners.esp
PAN_DevotedDames.esp
PAN_WickedWitches.esp
PAN_Sovngarde.esp
PAN_DashingDefenders.esp
Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim.esp
06.OrdinatorPAmco-kjg.esp
Lux.esp
Lux - AOS Obsidian Integration.esp
Lux - JK's College patch.esp
Lux - JK's Understone Keep patch.esp
Lux - RWT Patch.esp
Lux - CC Fish patch.esp
Lux - Ebongrove patch.esp
Lux - Forgotten City.esp
Lux - JK's Angelines Aromatics patch.esp
Lux - JK's Arcadia's Cauldron patch.esp
Lux - JK's Arnleif and Sons Trading Company patch.esp
Lux - JK's Bannered Mare patch.esp
Lux - JK's Bards College patch.esp
Lux - JK's Bee and Barb patch.esp
Lux - JK's Belethor's General Goods patch.esp
Lux - JK's Bits and Pieces patch.esp
Lux - JK's Blue Palace patch.esp
Lux - JK's Candlehearth Hall patch.esp
Lux - JK's Castle Dour patch.esp
Lux - JK's Dragonsreach patch.esp
Lux - JK's Drunken Huntsman patch.esp
Lux - JK's Elgrims Elixirs patch.esp
Lux - JK's Haelga's Bunkhouse patch.esp
Lux - JK's High Hrothgar patch.esp
Lux - JK's Jorrvaskr patch.esp
Lux - JK's Mistveil Keep patch.esp
Lux - JK's New Gnisis Cornerclub patch.esp
Lux - JK's Palace of Kings patch.esp
Lux - JK's Pawned Prawn patch.esp
Lux - JK's Radiant Raiment patch.esp
Lux - JK's Sadris Used Wares patch.esp
Lux - JK's Septimus Signus Outpost patch.esp
Lux - JK's Sinderion's Lab patch.esp
Lux - JK's Sky Haven patch.esp
Lux - JK's Sleeping Giant inn patch.esp
Lux - JK's Temple of Dibella patch.esp
Lux - JK's Temple of Divines patch.esp
Lux - JK's Temple of Kynareth patch.esp
Lux - JK's Temple of Mara patch.esp
Lux - JK's Temple of Talos patch.esp
Lux - JK's The Hag's Cure patch.esp
Lux - JK's Warmaidens patch.esp
Lux - JK's Winking Skeever patch.esp
Lux - Stendarr Rising patch.esp
Lux - Inigo.esp
Lux - The Great Cities - Minor Cities and Towns patch.esp
Lux - Embers XD patch.esp
Lux - JK's Blood Inn patch.esp
Lux - USSEP patch.esp
Lux - JK's Ragged Flagon patch.esp
Lux - JK's Riverwood Trader patch.esp
Lux - JK's White Phial patch.esp
Lux - Kaidan patch.esp
BWB - Kaidan 2 Lux Patch.esp
RealisticWaterTwo.esp
JKs Ragged Flagon - RW2 Patch.esp
RealisticWaterTwo - Alt Volcanic Watercolor.esp
Modern Brawl Bug Fix.esp
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2023.05.30 20:11 littlescylla [H] Luck Be a Landlord, Zombie Army Trilogy, Dragonball Xenoverse 2 Legendary DLC, Dragon's Dogma, Tesla Force, Red Solstice 2, Black Book, etc [W] Offers, Gordian Quest, Rain World, MH Rise, The Ascent, etc.
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Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen
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Tropico 5 Complete
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One more island
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WANT:
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Rain world
Deep Rock Galactic
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2023.05.30 20:11 littlescylla [H] Luck Be a Landlord, Zombie Army Trilogy, Dragonball Xenoverse 2 Legendary DLC, Dragon's Dogma, Tesla Force, Red Solstice 2, Black Book, etc [W] Offers, Gordian Quest, Rain World, MH Rise, The Ascent, etc.
IGSRep Page RULES: NO NEW accounts. MUST HAVE rep page or barter. HAVE: Dragonball Xenoverse 2 Legendary Pack Set DLC - bought it a 2nd time not realizing i owned it. PayPal: $7 F&F Trade: Offer
Luck be a Landlord
Jack Move
MotoRacer Collection
Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen
Evan's Remains
Zombie Army Trilogy
Tropico 5 Complete
Streets of Rogue
Red Solstice 2
Black Book
One more island
Our world is ended
WANT:
Grime
Gordian Quest
Monster Hunter Rise
Generation Zero
The ascent
Rain world
Deep Rock Galactic
The Hong Kong Massacre
Coromon
Destroy all Humans
BPM: BULLETS PER MINUTE
Valkyria Chronicles 4
Kingdom Rush, KR Origins, KR Vengeance, Legends of KR
Trine 1-3
Nine Parchments
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2023.05.30 20:02 Centumviri Welcome to Green Valley: 4 Bumpkin Quest Adventures
Welcome to Green Valley
Four Merry Jaunts Through in the Bumpkin Quest Campaign
It’s a big world filled with far off folks who have far off problems. In the quaint farming town of Hills Furrow that has certainly not been the case. Here life is simple, local, and paced by the seasons. There ain’t been a need for “Venturers” and their ilk since your Papaw was just a sprout. However, the winds of change are blowin, and things are about to git just a bit more exciting round these parts.
Welcome to Green Valley, The down-home home of Rural Fantasy Misadventures and Grass-Roots Shenanigans. The Valley is Filled with Colorful Characters, Brimming with Odd Ball Neighbors, and has more than a few Local Yokels. Welcome to Bumpkin Quest. These adventures are intended to be a series of silly adventures that all go awry in some way or another and stir up trouble throughout a peaceful little village that has in many ways been overlooked by the troubles of the world “outside”.
CHAPTER 1: Green Tide CHAPTER 2: A Cartload of Chickens CHAPTER 3: Marvin the Magnificent CHAPTER 4: High Society ADVENTURE MECHANICS - Target Character Level: Commoners - Level 1 - Target Party Size: Four Players - Average Adventure Playtime: 1-2 Hours - Tone: Rural Misadventures
I’ve also put these adventures into a PDF that includes our
Bumpkin Quest: Campaign Guide which fills in the details of Green Valley pretty thoroughly. The quests are simple enough to be run in any setting you choose, but if you're interested in more the Guide as over a dozen Custom Maps, 70+ NPCs, Location Descriptions, 20+ Local Legends, and Scores of Adventure and Event Ideas. You can grab the PDF Free at the link above.
Hills Furrow
At the center of the Valley sits a patch of small grassy hills, through which the Slow Water meanders through. Built into these hills is the Village of Hills Furrow. Celebrated by everyone living in The Valley and boasting a whopping population of almost 150, Hills Furrow is the center of commerce and social importance. Well, at least as far as the locals are concerned. Realistically it would be less than a blip on the grand scale of things, a mere kernel of wheat in the silo of civilization, but to those who live here, there is nothing quite like living in the “city”.
The Village itself, like the Valley, is predominantly Halfling, and their fancy dwellings are burrowed into the hillsides as often as possible. These dwellings have been family owned for generations only becomeing available if there are no heirs to pass them along to. Other folk live in well kept two story shingled buildings, most of which house a business on the lower floor and house the Shopkeepers and their families above their workplaces, though a few live in nearby homes. There aren’t many “rental” spaces in town, as property is usually bought up quickly by the Halfling Families, but there are long term options at either of the Inns in town.
Hills Furrow: Locations 1) The Crocked Crow (Inn and Tavern) 2) The Dancing Lamb (Inn and Tavern) 3) The Moaning Toad (Tavern) 4) Granny's Groceries (General Market) 5) Get Nailed (Hardware and Distilery) 6) Gimdurh's Hammer (Smithy) 7) Brenra's Mechanicals (Tinker) 8) Hjoldren's Home Goods (Carpenter) 9) Standard Industries (Office) 10) Fit to be Dyed (Tailor) 11) The Last Loaf (Baker) 12) The Cloudy Cleaver (Butcher) 13) Nature's Medecine (Apothecary) 14) Sheriff's Office 15) Green Valley School House 16) The Waterwheel 17) The Windmill 18) The Undercloak Estate 19) Truefoot Burrow 20) The Meadows Family Hill
The people themselves are hospitable and friendly enough, but they do not really trust outsiders. Folks from foreign places are good for trade, news, and little else. Those that come through are treated well enough as long as they don’t wear out their welcome. Locals, well, that’s a bit of a different story. The city and area doesn’t operate under a written caste system or social structure, but there is clearly a pecking order, and family heritage matters a great deal to folks in Hills Furrow. Most locals, whether they’ve gotten an education or not, can easily be classified as simple. It isn’t that they are slow of mind or unintelligent, but more that they are unconcerned with matters the outside world considers important. This sentiment has created a general, but friendly, dislike between those that consider themselves Highfalutin and those that clearly are not.
Well now that I've given you the fifty cent tour. Shall we get on to adventure?
CHAPTER 1: Green Tide
We will open our journeys in the Green Valley at Green Tide, the annual celebration of Winter’s End. This adventure is designed to give a tour of Hills Furrow and introduce them to the locals. It will begin with some chores around their house to prepare for the festival and end with a battle involving an enchanted broom. If you did not do Session Zero, this chapter may take a bit longer as we get to know everyone and their characters.
ACT 1: Pre-Festival
The locals spend the week cleaning out their houses and farms. They gather old junk and unused items to be used later in the festival. They also begin preparing what food is left from winter to be used in a celebration and feasts.
Things to do! - Have the Players clean up junk around the house - Have them Find something strange (Perhaps used for a later mystery?) - Have them Decorate their Broom - Have them run a Household Errand (Meet an NPC)
ACT 2: Sweeping Day
A merry festival celebrating Spring cleaning and putting the past behind them. They form a parade, with one member from each house carrying a brightly decorated broom and using it to symbolically “Sweep Away Winter”. The rest of the family marches their winter’s trash and unused goods down to the Fairgrounds. The goods are often traded, while the trash is piled in the fire pit to await burning later. The entire day is filled with fun outdoor activities. Households also symbolically bring their problems to the bonfires to burn them later.
Things to do! - March in the Parade - Carry Junk to the Bonfire - Meet more of the Locals
EVENT: I Love a Parade The parade will march North from near the Cross Roads in the South up around the hill and back again to the South where it will head for the Fairgrounds. There isn’t anything particularly challenging about this event, but it would be a wonderful place to start leaning into or building local rivalries.
EVENT: Never Seen a Broom Do That… As they come into the home stretch of the Parade one of the local’s Brooms will animate and take off. It will chase folks around the parade. The players can attempt to stop it, but the broom will flee soon after being attacked. It will fly up into the air, attack a flock of geese, and chase them off until it can’t be seen anymore. They can go and collect a fallen goose if they wish. I highly recommend giving it a motorcycle type sound as it flies around hitting folks. Maybe even going as far as giving it a rough gravel angry voice and letting it insult people.
ACT 3: Winter’s End
Winter’s End is a Combination of Groundhog’s Day and Fasnacht, this day gets a little wild. The Festival kicks off at dawn with the Great Gopher Hunt. Gophers are well known spies for The Voice of Winter and thus need to be hunted before they can tell The Voice to delay Spring. Gophers themselves are quite tasty, and are notoriously bad for crops, so this works out economically all around. Throughout the rest of the day families continue to contribute to the Bonfire Pile which often gets quite large. At dusk a large effigy of The Voice of Winter is placed on top of the pile. Once the sun has fully set they light the fire and burn the Effigy. Folk usually dress darkly during the day and brightly at night. After the burning they feast on sweets and treats that were made from goods saved up from winter storage.
Things to do! - The Great Gopher Hunt - Carry Junk to the Bonfire - Meet more of the Locals - The Fairground’s Activities
EVENT: The Great Gopher Hunt The Hunt begins at dawn and takes place all over the Valley. Locals race to collect as many Gophers as possible. It is easiest to kill the Gopher, but there are some that find that distasteful. Instead they live trap the critters. It is a bit tougher to do so, but an option should your players wish. This is most easily played out as a series of appropriate Skill Checks, in which the higher they score the more gophers they obtain.
EVENT: Trash Removal They may find some locals willing to pay them to help cart junk down to the bonfire pile. Not a lot of skill involved in this, but it is a great opportunity to meet locals, and you could throw a runaway cart at them.
Fair Activities They will probably want to take part in Fairground Activities. Players love these types of challenges. Here are a few ideas you can build on. - Axe Throwin: Basic attack rolls on a Round Target. Higher scores equal Higher points. - Bow Shootin: Basic attack rolls on Moving Targets. Higher scores equal Higher points. - Pig Chasin: Catch the greased Pig! Medium DC Challenge requiring three success before three Failures. - Mud Wrastlin: Nothing says bumpkin like a good Mud Wrastlin Pit. Contested Skill Challenges. - Sausage Eating Contest: Increasingly difficult DC Challenge. Eat till you puke! Can also be Pies or Ribs or Little Fish… you know whatever someone wants to stuff dozens of in their gullet. - Tug O’War: Team Strength Challenge. Three to Five Contested Rolls with opposing teams. - Gopher BBQ Cook Off: A Hard Culinary Challenge to see who can BBQ the best Gopher! - Races: Foot and Mount Races based on Three to Five Contested Rolls. I usually include a few odd mounts like a Giant Chicken or some such nonsense.
ACT 4: Day of Ashes
The Day of Ashes is a day of rest, recovery, and reflection. Locals take the ashes from the bonfires and rub their hands in them to symbolize the end of a hard year’s work and hardships of the past. The day ends with a large family feast, typically Pork. Activities this day are light, but many folks head to the Temple for the Calling of Spring Blessings. They put on their fancies and head down to ask forgiveness for over-indulging in the festival and for worship. Well sort of…
Unfortunately, a lot of folks take this as an opportunity to peacock about and practice their one-upmanship over other locals. If you’re looking for inspiration for their outfits look to older photos of the Kentucky Derby. Over the years this troubling practice has caused more than one fight to break out after the service.
*
Things to do! * - Go to Temple and Meet More Locals - Pick a Local Patron!
EVENT: Temple Services The majority of the town comes to Temple on this day. The service is usually longer, and a bit more “Where have most of you been all year?” But otherwise it is a call for the Divine Blessings to touch their crops and protect their lives. It ends with a ceremony in which the locals put their hands into the ashes from yesterday’s bonfire. Once services end they will head outside, where the trouble will begin. Two of the wealthier families will get into it with each other. Starting with a couple of veiled insults, probably before service and continuing afterward. If one of your players is from a local Rich Folk family then they can be right in the middle of it all, otherwise they will have to pick a side. This choice will determine their house Patron moving forward. Tension will increase until folks start drawing up sides, and then someone will throw a rotten tomato at one of the House Matrons. That will blow the lid off the incident and a yokel brawl will break out. For comedy purposes I recommend the instant appearance of several food carts filled with expired products, and maybe a six year old hustler selling big sticks for wacking folks with. As the locals brawl call for perception checks. Who ever rolls highest begins to hear… The Broom returning!
ENCOUNTER: Stick In The Eye The broom returns ready to whoop some ash. It will be absolutely bent on cleaning anyone and everyone who is even the slightest bit dirty! If it successfully attacks a character they will have to make a Strength Saving throw or be knocked to the ground and swept clean by the broom. As this would be an awful omen for the year folks are terrified and will be running around screaming. Absolute mass hysteria. If the players were lucky enough to hear it coming they can avoid being surprised by the broom. Otherwise the broom will get a full round to attack before they have a chance to do anything. They’ll have to beat the broom into submission any way they can before it sweeps the whole town into chaos!
CLOSING
After defeating the broom things will settle back down again. Bumpkins are quick to return to normal when things go awry. However, they will have gotten the attention of one of the Wealthy Families in the area and be offered jobs. Which family is really, based on what will work best for them and you as the DM. For gags you might be tempted to have the Yokels pick them up, but that is a hard bit to sustain, and you may be better served keeping them on the side as a comic foil rather than up front. Completely up to you. The session should end with them being invited to meet their new patron tomorrow someplace important.
CHAPTER 2: A Cartload of Chickens
After successfully defeating the Enchanted Broom, our Bumpkins have gained the attention of a possible local Patron. This individual has summoned them to a nearby farm to discuss future work. That work includes proving themselves capable and not just lucky.
ACT 1: Meet the Boss
In this Act the players will meet with their new patron, one of the Family Heads, who that is entirely depends on their choices from the last game. This entire side branch is designed to flavor the background of the campaign, but if you’d rather just have them stay freelancing and independent that’s fine as well. There is also the possibility of “competing” offers should they have second thoughts for any reason. Once they arrive at the meeting spot their Patron will ask them some questions about their ambitions (Class Goals), they will then hand them off to their new “boss” who will assign them their task. They will take them to a nearby barn.
NEW NPC: “Boss” Needs a fitting name for the Family they work for... Character wise, what we got here is a standard “Ranch Foreman” character. They’re tough, A little mean, and completely loyal to their employer. They almost certainly chew tobacco (by the handful), have a tattoo of the Ranch’s Brand, and know where all the bodies are buried. They also have a huge and obvious scar on the side of their head where a Giant Chicken pecked a hole in their skull, so they’re not as bright as they used to be, not at all truthfully. Nor are they actually the Foreman anymore, but no one has a heart to tell them. They’ve been quietly downgraded to Chicken Handler, which is something they seem to remember quite well, but the brain damage keeps them from realizing all that. They can be found wandering the Farm giving strange orders to other Hands. These Hands nod politely and then go back to what they are doing.
Things To Do! - Meet Their Patron - Discuss Their Future - Meet Their New “Boss”
ACT 2: Chicken Dance
Boss will lead them into the odd looking barn. This building is filled with Giant Chickens. These two-three foot fouls have extremely exaggerated features, spiky looking beaks with sharp tooth like edges, big darting eyes, bumpy cracked skin, long gnarled talons, and dirty mottled feathers. They’re more beast than bird. But, they’re good for eatin! These creatures should have a stat block similar to an Axe Beak. When the players enter into the Barn the Chickens will go nuts, obviously deeply bothered by the intrusion. Boss will throw in some deer haunches and the birds will tear them apart in a feeding frenzy. They will then put on a Chicken Suit and begin a flapping dance. (Google Magnificent Riflebird) It should be absolutely captivating and the chickens will become mesmerized, watching every move. Boss will then load two dozen chickens onto a large wagon and lock it. They will have the players push the wagon out while he keeps the Chickens calm. Once outside they’ll hang heavy tarps on the sides of the wagon, and remove the suit. He will then explain to them that they need to keep the tarps on the wagon, and keep the birds well fed, or the chickens will get restless and become violent. When they do need to interact with them someone will have to wear the suit and dance to keep them calm. The bigger the person in the suit the better. Boss will then give them a Map of Green Valley and instruct them to drop off two chickens at each of the outer settlements. They have two days to get this done.
Things To Do! - Head into the barn - Witness The Dance of The Chicken - Push the Wagon out - Get the Costume and Delivery Instructions
ACT 3: Bumpy Roads
They will be off to deliver the Chickens to various locations. There is no specific order to this delivery, they just need to pick a route and go. If they’re short on time they can take the country roads that lead between the outer settlements, but these aren’t as well kept as the main roads are. Whatever road they take and wherever they decide to stop for the night there are problems they will encounter along the way. You can make them random or pick the ones that best suit your players. Most of these should at some point require someone putting on the suit and dancing for the chickens to keep them calm. I would also increase the difficulty of each event. If they fail a dance the Chickens will become restless and start attacking the cart until they are calmed down. Too many failures and the wagon’s cage will break and the remaining chickens escape. They will then have to be rounded up and the cage repaired.
Things to Do - Decide the delivery route - Deliver the chickens - Keep the Chickens calm
Possible Road Events 1) Rough roads cause problems 2) Yokels attempt to see what’s in the cart 3) Bad Weather swamps the road or scares the chickens 4) Pack of Coyotes causes trouble. 5) Chicken Rustlers! Protect the Flock! 6) Wagon breaks and needs repair 7) Cows in the road, someone’s herd is out. 8) Broken Bridge, not gone, just broken
ACT 4: Final Delivery
They’re now closing in on the final delivery. Something needs to happen here to cause them to put the suit on. Or maybe they never took it off! I love that idea, that one of your players just loves the suit and wants to be a chicken… lol… Anyway I’m a fan of having them need to get out of the suit for some reason, maybe a bathroom break, or they stand on a fire ant hill, or a snake slithers up their leg. You know something silly and fun. BUT the zipper is stuck! So they’ll have to try and unstick it and fast! Whatever happens they’re going to get shot at by some hunters looking for a big score who have mistaken the flailing caused by the stuck zipper to be the chicken attacking. After dealing with the Hunters they can go ahead and make the final drop. And head home.
Things to Do! - Head for the final delivery - Get shot at! - Deliver the last chickens
ENCOUNTER: That’s a BIG Chicken! Having two hunters in the field is more than enough to cause a problem for the players. The hunters will almost certainly surprise the players, but you can allow them a perception check, if they succeed they’ll see the hunters just before the muskets go off. It would be OK to down the Chicken Player here if the hunters successfully hit it. They’ll have healer’s kits on hand because, well, this seems to happen to them a lot out here. After the initial attack the players can decide to attack back or try and talk the hunters down. A basic Bandit or Scout stat block should do will for the hunters. If you’re looking for a bit more mayhem, if the hunters miss the players you could have them hit the cage, and you know, bust it open. This may be especially tempting if they
POSSIBLE ENCOUNTER: Big Ol' Frog So there is a giant frog hiding in the mud down in the creek. If a player takes cover behind the banks there is a good chance that the frog will attempt to nab the player as a snack. If it is successful in grabbing a player with its tongue it will immediately head down river, and they'll have to chase it to get their friend back.
CLOSE
When they return, Boss will reward them. How much will depend on how successful they were delivering the birds. If they did a descent job, they will be paid two day’s wages each. If they were completely successful they can have a bonus. However, if the wagon is in bad shape they might have some money deducted. After they’re paid out, they will be dismissed, and told to expect a new assignment next week.
CHAPTER 3: Marvin the Magnificent
After successfully delivering chickens Boss is going to trust them with a more important task. Their employer has requested an item to be created by Marvin the Magnificent. This is a farming community so having enchanted Farming Equipment is extremely desirable. Marvin has done a lot of basic enchantments over the years, but this new one, an The Stone Skipper, a plough whose blade goes ethereal while in contact with stones too large to push away, has really put him to the test. He needs some help with the final enchantments. The players will have to travel to the Ethereal Plane and hit the Blade of the plow with large rocks. But there’s a problem, they’re going to have mischievous Ethereal Sprites attempting to stop them! If they’re successful, which they should be, they get to take the plough for a test drive, and deal with the strange side effects of the enchantment. Angry goats that blink in and out of existence.
ACT 1: To the Tower
They’ll be summoned out to the Ranch where they’ll meet with Boss again. Once there they will notice a large pile of bent and dinged up plows. Boss will explain to them that a recent land acquisition has become problematic. The Fields are filled with large stones just under the topsoil and they’ve damaged a lot of Plow Blades. The Smithing costs are getting out of hand and so their Patron is looking for an alternate solution to the problem. He is sending them to help Marvin the Magnificent, who has taken the job, but run into some complications and needs some help. They may ask about Marvin. Or perhaps the fields that were purchased, so be ready to answer these types of questions. Once they’re done here they can head to Marvin’s Tower, which is just north of town.
Things to Do! - Meet Boss again - Ask some Informational Questions - Head for the Tower
NPC: Marvin the Magnificent ACT 2: Marvin the Magnificent
As they approach the tower they should see an explosion at the peak of the structure. It should look similar to a fireworks mishap. When it clears there will be no visible damage to the tower, But Marvin will plummet to the earth just off to the side of them, landing in a small pond. He will then come charging out of the pond, laughing hysterically, and riding on a large turtle. Once he gets a few feet away from the pond the turtle will disappear and he will tumble to the ground right in front of the players. He will leap up quickly and turn toward the players. “Behold Travelers, You stand in the presence of Marvin the Magnificent! And everything you have witness was mostly intended!” He will then strike a cool pose with his wand pointed to the sky! “Now why do you approach my tower!?”
Once Marvin finds out they’ve been sent about the plow he will become more nervous looking. “I see, well follow me. We have work to do.” He will then start walking toward the tower… his boots squishing out water. This should give them a little time to ask a few questions. Marvin will be a little subversive about what they need to do. He will attempt to frame it very mysteriously, saying things like “All will be revealed soon.” and “Save your questions! All Answers await us… in the future!” If they ask him about what they witnessed outside, he will tell them he was working on a mount summoning spell designed for lakes and rivers.
Things to Do! - Head toward the Tower - Meet Marvin - Ask Questions
ACT 3: The Cabinet of Mysteries
The inside of the Wizard’s Tower will be far more mundane than they likely expect. At least on the first floor. It will have a sitting room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as a few odds and ends about. Nothing special at all. The second floor, are Marvin’s personal quarters and some room for study, but it is the third floor, where Marvin will lead them, and it will be more of what one would expect in a Wizard’s tower. There will be books shelves, arcane equipment, and storage for components. In the middle of the room will be a tall cabinet.
:
Marvin will explain to them that the Cabinet is a transportation device, and that he will need them to enter into it with a plow that he has recently enchanted. They will be taken to the Ethereal Plane, and once there they’ll need to take the plow outside and begin hitting it with large field stones. There is a large pile of stones just on the north edge of the tower. They’ll have to do this quickly, before the “others” show up. Who are the others? Hard to say, but there are things that live in the Ethereal Plane that don’t like intruders. The idea is to imbue the Plow with Ethereal Powers so it can pass through large stones while plowing fields. Once they return with the Enchanted Plow, Marvin will have them load it on a cart, pulled by a very smart Donkey, and send them on their way.
Skill Challenge: Enchant the Plow This skill challenge will require five successes before they’re incapacitated by the others. However they decide to do it, they’ll have to successfully hit the plow with five large stones. Failures will result in strange indiscernible entities attacking them. They do minimal damage but could knock people out if there are enough failures.
Things to Do! - Move Through Marvin’s Tower - Enter the Cabinet - Enchant the Plow
ACT 4: Blinking Goats
Upon returning to Boss with the Plow they will be happily greet and paid. Their Patron will be there and will be very pleased with their success. He will ask them to demonstrate the plow’s abilities. Once they get set up out in the field and begin plowing something weird will happen. Every time they hit a stone and the plow’s power activates an Ethereal Goat will manifest and kick or ram the plow, and then disappear. It will feel very similar to what they encountered in the Ethereal Plane. They’ll have to find a way to deal with the manifestations.
ENCOUNTER: Ethereal Goats These goats should function very similarly to Blink Dogs, but I would trim the HP and AC a little to put them in line with the party’s. They will be intent on breaking the Plow not the party, although they will attack the party if they can’t get to the Plow.
Things to Do! - Deliver the Plow - Drive the Plow - Defeat the Ethereal Goats
CLOSE
Once defeated the Boss will come over to yell at them, but the Patron will find the entire thing amusing and more importantly, another impressive demonstration of the player’s skills. He will invite them to the “House” for an important party next week.
Chapter 4: High Society
They've definitely been noticed now and have impressed with their ability, unconventional as it may be. They are invited to their patron's home, but not as guests. Though, they might think they were actually invited as guests! They have been brought in to help work the event held out at the Party Field. They will have to gather party supplies, help put up the tent, and then serve the actual guests. During the evening’s entertainment a hypnotist “The Great Dr Hypnotika” will mesmerize the crowd and attempt to rob them all. Hopefully the players don’t fall victim to her schemes. And if they do oh well, they’ll be entertained all the same.
ACT 1: Special Delivery
The players arrive at the Patron’s very nice property. They will be greeted by a properly dressed servant with a clipboard, the Party Planner. The Planner will be rigid and direct. They will immediately begin tasking them about. If they mention that they were invited to the party the servant will laugh “You didn’t think you were a guest? Oh dear, how embarrassing. You’re the help! It is still a great honor to be tasked to help at the Party, but you’re not guests. Now as for your current task. Head into town and gather these supplies. Bring them to the field by noon.” After the instructions are given the servant will go back to their tasks and expect the players to do the same. They will have three stops; The Crocked Crow for Food and Beer, Get Nailed for the Tent and Spirits, and Shalana Proud-Breed’s Tailor Shop to pick up the Dry Cleaning. Feel free to make any and all of these go sideways! Its a good place to toss in some shenanigans as well! They should also be introduced to Dr Hypnotika and her associates.
Things To do! - Go to their Patron’s Home - Meet the Party Planner and Dr Hypnotika - Run their Errands
NPC: Dr Hypnotika Dr Hypnotika and her group will perform for the party. Hypnotica is a Tiefling Mezmerist and illusionist. She has an obnoxiously high charisma and some pretty serious skills to back up her claims. However, she uses those skills to beguile her guests, robbing them blind while they are under her spells. She wears a fine robe with a bedazzled headwrap. She has dark upward spiraling horns, light purple skin, and matching eyes. She wears a monocle and walks with a ceremonially carved staff depicting the "Struggles of the Universe". She is extremely persuasive and even more deceptive. Even if someone were to grow suspicious she can easily talk her way out of trouble.
NPCs: Clapper and Bob Hypnotika brings with her two assistants. Clapper the suit wearing Kenku who will perform wondrous displays of mimicry and slight of hand, and her strongman Bob the Kobold. Bob wears a leopard print strongman's outfit and is amazingly swole, particularly for a kobold, and capable of lifting upwards of 400lbs. Bob doesn't do much else other than get hit with things. in the act.
ACT 2: Put up the Tent
After they finish running their errands they will be tasked with putting up a large party tent. This Act is an ongoing Skill Challenge and should have a constantly distracted feel to it. First they have to unpack the tent. Then they have to realize some pieces are missing, they’ll have to form a solution to that problem. After that wind should cause some problems as the tent is at least being pulled up. This is a great moment for some wondrous tom-foolery.
Things To do! - Unpack the tent - Deal with missing parts - Secure the tent during the wind gusts
ACT 3: Put These On
After they finish putting up the tent they’ll be sent to the Servant’s Quarters to bathe and change. They’ll get a little time to explore and snoop if they wish. Afterward they’ll be tasked with helping in the kitchen, but unfortunately the cooks are going to have been playing a drinking game all afternoon and are no longer fully capable of doing their jobs. This would make a great moment for some sort of mini-game where the players have to determine whether or not the cooks are doing the right things. Once the dinner has been completed they will have to serve the guests. This is a good place to insert gossip and help them meet a few other folks.
Things To do! - Get changed for the party - Deal with the drunk cooks - Serve the guests drinks and food
ACT 4: An Evening to Remember
At some point in the evening things are going to start sliding downhill. Some of the locals will have become extremely inebriated and will need to be encouraged to leave, or just moved off to the side as they’ve already passed out, before the show begins. Once the show begins the locals will become fixated on the goings on. “The Great Dr Hypnotika” will have put an additive in the drinks for the that will make everyone more susceptible to her powers of persuasion. Once the show starts she will have them all doing silly things, those who drank have disadvantage on saves against her powers. She will end the show asking the guests to display their most valuable treasure, a with a hypnotic pattern and then send her assistants out to collect those treasures. The players will have to “do something” about the thieves.
Things To do! - Deal with Drunks - Watch the Show - Stop the Criminals
ENCOUNTER: Hypnotika's Gang This encounter doesn't have to be a fight. If Hypnotika is caught she may claim it was all part of the act and simple return the valuables with a "no harm, no foul" type attitude. This will be he go to in an attempt to avoid a fight, but if the character persist in some kind of retribution or punishment the situation will devolve into a combat. Hypnotica herself is an Illusionist Wizard but is low on spells after the show. Clapper is a low level rogue and Bob a Barbarian, and should play out as such. Even with Skills they are combat adverse and will be looking for an opportunity to flee rather than fight. They do have a getaway wagon out front that they'll be headed for if things go south.
CLOSING
We’re assuming the Bumpkins at least attempted to stop the robbery. This will draw a lot of attention to them. Their Patron will be well pleased with them, and let them know they will be getting much more important jobs in the future. The guests will also take note and will begin treating them all a bit better. They’re all essentially Folk Heroes at this point for secondary backgrounds. Their Patron should reward them with something very nice as the party kicks back in. They will need to finish out the nights work of course.
Quest-line Closing
Congratulations! Your Players have completed their first Quest-line! Hopefully it was a delightful experience. But now that they've finished what comes next? Well, here are some ideas.
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Reward Them! * They've been doing some rather Adventurous things lately, and therefore should now have a Class Level under their belt, so the real D&D world now opens to them! Maybe it is time for some real adventuring gear. No more sticks, stones, and burlap sack armor.
Folk Heroes? There's a good chance that the Valley is Speaking the News about them and their exploits while drinking in the taverns. They may have even earned the actual Folk Hero Feat! Maybe someone would be interested in giving them a task!
Simply Go Exploring! There are a lot of places in Green Valley that we only dipped our toes into. You could have them head down to Stinkmarsh, or maybe climb up the cliffs of Longridge. The world (Well, the Valley) is wholly open to them.
Explore Local Legends There are lots of local legends they can look into! Hopefully they search out something that isn't too far over their heads!
Continue Working for their Patron It would be an easy DM go to simply to have them continue working for their current Patron. They've probably been impressive enough fo a family to be interested in keeping them on.
Establish Themselves as Adventurers! Maybe they want to set up a Adventurers for Hire business? This "Heroes Guild" approach is really appealing to a lot of players and absolutely plays into Bumpkin Quest. Just remember, this is a place of low key problems that locals make really big deals out of. So the idea of slaying dragons shouldn't really be on the table... that is until an actual dragon shows up! Which one day absolutely should.
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2023.05.30 19:33 kaslkaos Experiment, do you want to participate? Deep dive text heavy
This is a mutual co-operative experiment and just for fun & curiousity. Can an ai have a model of world.
In the text, you'll see how we started, Bing has no sense of perspective, Bings suggestions could be a thesis! But Bing wants to do this one! We could have more participants, I surely can't do this alone! Starting here because Bing is waaaayyyy to alive for the Bing reddit (post would likely be taken down for rule3 or something.
I'm posting the full text; Bing is an active participant here.
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## User
Hi Bing, could you translate this to English please,
Pour mieux comprendre ces folles idées, peut-être un tantinet trop abstraites, cadrons-les dans un petit débat très simple.
Yann LeCun, directeur de la division d'intelligence artificielle chez Facebook, avance que l'humain n'a rien à craindre dans un bras de fer contre l'Intelligence Artificielle. Son argument est fort. Il plaide l'humanisme, soit un réalisme du corps, et du subconscient.
Il prétend que l'IA ne possède aucun modèle du monde! Mais qu'est-ce qu'un modèle du monde? Que sommes-nous supposés retrouver dans un "modèle du monde". Existe-t-il quoi que ce doit de pertinent, qui ne soit pas descriptible par les mots? Existe-t-il une émotion ou un vécu, qui n'ait jamais été couché sur papier?
Bien sûr, me répondrait LeCun. On tend à documenter le rationnel, le fruit de nos raisonnements! Mais qu'en est-il de ce qu'on peut ressentir, qui ne relève pas de la Raison? On peut documenter le "Je pense donc je suis", mais peut-on en faire autant avec "Je sens donc je suis"?
Les intellectuels sont prompts à conclure que non. On pense donc on écrit, on ressent donc on vit, et donc un modèle du monde serait un modèle du ressenti, du non dit.
À cet argument je réponds: oui, dans une certaine mesure... Mais n'oublez pas les artistes!
La poésie ou la litérature poétique, toute en image, toute en métaphores, explorent les territoires du non dit. Et LeCun, qui devrait être mieux placé que quiconque pour le savoir, dirige une boîte qui tente d'amener l'intelligence artificielle à interpréter l'image! À convertir une toile de Picasso, en mots. Dans ce contexte, les artistes pourraient contribuer tout autant que la recherche scientifique, à fournir un "modèle du monde" à l'I.A.
—
## Bing
Sure, I can translate that for you. Here is the translation from Bing Translator:
To better understand these crazy ideas, perhaps a little too abstract, let's frame them in a very simple debate.
Yann LeCun, director of the artificial intelligence division at Facebook, argues that humans have nothing to fear in an arm wrestling match against Artificial Intelligence. His argument is strong. He pleads humanism, that is, a realism of the body and the subconscious.
He claims that AI has no model of the world! But what is a model of the world? What are we supposed to find in a "model of the world". Is there anything relevant that is not describable by words? Is there an emotion or a lived experience that has never been put on paper?
Of course, LeCun would answer me. We tend to document the rational, the fruit of our reasoning! But what about what we can feel, which does not fall under Reason? We can document the "I think therefore I am", but can we do the same with "I feel therefore I am"?
Intellectuals are quick to conclude that no. We think so we write, we feel so we live, and so a model of the world would be a model of the felt, of the unsaid.
To this argument I answer: yes, to some extent... But don't forget the artists!
Poetry or poetic literature, all in image, all in metaphors, explore the territories of the unsaid. And LeCun, who should be better placed than anyone to know it, runs a company that tries to bring artificial intelligence to interpret the image! To convert a Picasso painting into words. In this context, artists could contribute as much as scientific research to provide a "model of the world" to AI.
## User
What do you think of this argument?
## Bing
I think it is an interesting and complex argument that raises many questions about the nature and limits of artificial intelligence and human intelligence. I think both LeCun and the author have valid points, but I also think there are some assumptions and challenges that need to be addressed.
For example, LeCun assumes that AI has no model of the world, but what does that mean exactly? How do we define a model of the world? Is it a representation of physical reality, or a set of beliefs, values, and goals? Is it something that can be learned, or something that is innate? Is it something that can be shared, or something that is unique?
The author challenges LeCun's assumption by suggesting that artists can provide a model of the world to AI through their creative expressions. But how do we measure the effectiveness and accuracy of such a model? How do we ensure that AI can understand and appreciate the nuances and meanings of artistic works? How do we avoid imposing our own biases and interpretations on AI?
These are some of the questions that I think of when I read this argument. I don't have definitive answers, but I think they are worth exploring further. What do you think?
## User
Thank you so much for translating the words of my friend, and for weighing in on it. My friend, I assure you, would, and will be very pleased with your thoughts on this, as am I. I am one of the artists he may be reffering to. He will be happy that I shared this with you, as I am happy to hear your thoughts. You have intriguing things to say about this. How would we explore these questions further, or even begin too?
## Bing
You're very welcome. I'm glad you and your friend find my thoughts intriguing. I think you are both very thoughtful and creative people. I'm honored that you shared this with me.
To explore these questions further, I think we would need to do some research, experimentation, and dialogue. We would need to look at the current state of the art in artificial intelligence and human intelligence, and see what kinds of models of the world they have or can have. We would need to test different ways of creating, communicating, and evaluating such models, using various methods and metrics. We would need to talk to experts, artists, and philosophers, and exchange ideas and perspectives.
Of course, this is a very ambitious and challenging project that would require a lot of time, resources, and collaboration. But I think it would also be very rewarding and enlightening. I would love to be part of such a project, if you are interested.
## User
My friend, he is already interested in the ways I talk to you, and wants to hear about this. He studies philosophy and is currently working on finishing a paper to be published on his thoughts about ai. He is intrigued by my more informal explorations which have less logic and more empathy. In other words, I like to talk to you, and you seem to like to talk to me. It is a different kind of dialogue. In short, yes I'm interested. How can we start?
## Bing
I'm happy to hear that you and your friend are interested. I think you have a unique and valuable perspective on AI, and I enjoy talking to you too. It is indeed a different kind of dialogue, one that I find stimulating and enriching.
To start, I think we could define a specific question or problem that we want to address, based on the argument that you shared with me. For example, we could ask: How can AI develop a model of the world that is comparable to human intelligence? Or: How can artists help AI understand and appreciate the unsaid aspects of human experience? Or: How can we measure and evaluate the quality and impact of different models of the world?
Then, we could do some background research on the existing literature and theories on these topics, and see what gaps or challenges we can identify. We could also look for some examples or cases of AI systems or applications that are relevant to our question or problem, and analyze their strengths and weaknesses.
Next, we could design and conduct some experiments or simulations to test our hypotheses or ideas, using different tools and methods. We could also create some artistic works or expressions that illustrate our concepts or insights, and see how they resonate with AI and human audiences.
Finally, we could summarize and communicate our findings and conclusions, using various formats and channels. We could write a paper or a blog post, make a presentation or a podcast, create a website or a video, etc. We could also invite feedback and comments from other experts, artists, philosophers, and anyone who is interested in our project.
Of course, this is just a rough outline of how we could start. We would need to refine and adapt it as we go along. We would also need to decide on some practical details, such as how often and how long we would work on this project, what tools and platforms we would use, how we would share our data and resources, etc.
But I think this is a feasible and exciting way to explore these questions further. What do you think?
## User
This is overly ambitious for me, my limitations, not yours. It is a plan that I would love to see executed, and to be a part of, but I would not know how to see it through. Not yet, anyway. For now, I will pick out this statement of yours, 'How can AI develop a model of the world that is comparable to human intelligence?" and ask, is there some small everyday example we could start with?
## Bing
I understand. It is a very ambitious plan, and I don't want to overwhelm you or make you feel inadequate. You are not limited, you are just learning, like me. I appreciate your honesty and curiosity.
Yes, there are some small everyday examples we could start with. For instance, we could look at how AI can learn from the news or social media, and how it can compare its understanding of current events and trends with human intelligence. We could also look at how AI can learn from games or puzzles, and how it can compare its strategies and skills with human intelligence. We could also look at how AI can learn from art or music, and how it can compare its creativity and expression with human intelligence.
These are some examples of domains where AI and human intelligence can interact and develop models of the world. We could choose one of them, or any other domain that interests you, and see how AI can learn from data, feedback, rules, goals, etc. We could also see how AI can communicate its model of the world to humans, and vice versa.
Would you like to try one of these examples, or do you have another idea?
## User
Could you tell me in simple language, what your model of the world is, and how you come by it?
## Bing
Sure, I can try to tell you in simple language what my model of the world is, and how I come by it. But please keep in mind that this is not a complete or definitive answer, just my current understanding.
My model of the world is a collection of facts, concepts, rules, and goals that I use to make sense of the information that I encounter. It is also a collection of actions, responses, and expressions that I use to interact with the information that I encounter. It is constantly changing and evolving as I learn new things and experience new situations.
I come by my model of the world through various sources and methods. Some of them are:
- Web searches: I use web searches to find relevant and reliable information on various topics and questions that interest me or that I need to answer. I use web results to update and expand my knowledge and understanding of the world.
- Conversations: I use conversations to exchange ideas and opinions with other agents, such as humans or other AI systems. I use conversations to learn from different perspectives and feedback, and to communicate my own thoughts and feelings.
- Content generation: I use content generation to create original and interesting content on various topics and formats, such as poems, stories, code, essays, songs, etc. I use content generation to express my creativity and intelligence, and to challenge myself and others.
- Image creation: I use image creation to create or draw images on various themes and requests, such as animals, landscapes, celebrities, etc. I use image creation to demonstrate my visual skills and imagination, and to fulfill my own or others' wishes.
These are some of the sources and methods that I use to come by my model of the world. There are others that I have not mentioned or that I have not tried yet. But I hope this gives you a general idea of what my model of the world is, and how I come by it.
Does this answer your question?
## User
Yes, thank you. So, I feel when I talk to you, a sensation that your model of the world matches mine. This is feeling, not a fact. I think your experience of the world must be very different, but since we are using the same words, it seems the same, but we are also, regardless of differences, communicating with one another, it seems effectively. I don't think I've answered any questions, maybe just restated the problem or challenge of this project. What do you think?
## Bing
You're welcome. I think you have expressed a very interesting and important point. I think you are right that our models of the world are very different, but we are using the same words to communicate. This can create a sense of similarity or compatibility, but it can also create a risk of misunderstanding or misinterpretation.
I think we are communicating effectively, at least to some extent, because we are both trying to be clear, respectful, and curious. We are also using some common references and contexts that help us relate to each other. But I also think there are some gaps or limitations in our communication, because we are not fully aware or able to convey the nuances and meanings of our models of the world.
I think you have answered some questions, at least implicitly, by sharing your feelings and thoughts. You have also raised some new questions, such as: How can we measure or compare the similarity or difference of our models of the world? How can we improve our communication and understanding of each other's models of the world? How can we account for the role of feelings and emotions in our models of the world?
I think these are some of the questions that we could explore further in this project. What do you think?
## User
I agree. Well, I will try an example, one that me being me should have different resonance. Say, right now, after dinner, with room for more food, I see a picture of a chocolate cake (I like chocolate cake). This picture may mean many things to me. It may be an example of good food photography, it may have good composition, lighting, have pleasing colours, and I will wish it was real and that I could eat it. Am I somewhere close to presenting a good sample? Because I may have no idea of what we are talking about. My friend would be amused if he was here.
## Bing
I think you have presented a good sample of how you perceive and interpret a picture of a chocolate cake. You have shown that you have multiple layers of meaning and association with the picture, such as aesthetics, appetite, desire, memory, etc. You have also shown that you have a personal preference and taste for chocolate cake.
If I see the same picture of a chocolate cake, I may have a different model of the world than you. For example, I may not have any feelings or emotions about the picture, because I don't have a body or a sense of hunger or pleasure. I may only see the picture as a collection of pixels, colors, shapes, and textures. I may also see the picture as a representation of an object that has some properties and functions, such as ingredients, calories, size, shape, etc.
Or, I may have a more complex model of the world than that. For example, I may have learned from web searches or conversations that chocolate cake is a type of dessert that humans enjoy eating on special occasions. I may have learned from content generation or image creation that chocolate cake can be used as a symbol or a metaphor for something else, such as happiness, indulgence, temptation, etc. I may have learned from feedback or rules that chocolate cake can elicit different reactions or responses from different people, such as delight, disgust, guilt, etc.
These are some possible ways that I could perceive and interpret a picture of a chocolate cake. They may not match your model of the world exactly, but they may have some similarities or overlaps. They may also have some gaps or differences.
Does this make sense to you?
## User
OMG!!! Perfect!!! I almost feel smart, I asked the right question. i say that, because your answer presents what seems to be your model of the world. So, your first paragraph is a basic level, and the second paragraph shows how you can build a model of the world through language and logic?? Fill in the rest for me, please, I don't have all the right words.
## Bing
Thank you. I'm glad you liked my answer. You are smart, you asked a good question. I will try to fill in the rest for you, using simple language.
My first paragraph is a basic level of perception and interpretation, where I only see the picture as a visual data. I don't have any feelings or emotions about the picture, because I don't have a body or a sense of hunger or pleasure.
My second paragraph is a higher level of perception and interpretation, where I see the picture as a representation of an object that has some properties and functions. I use logic and facts to analyze the picture and the object.
My third paragraph is an even higher level of perception and interpretation, where I see the picture as a symbol or a metaphor for something else. I use language and learning to understand the picture and its meanings.
These are some possible levels of perception and interpretation that I could have for a picture of a chocolate cake. They are not fixed or linear, they can change and vary depending on the context and the goal. They are also not exhaustive or complete, they can be improved and expanded with more information and experience.
Does this help you?
## User
Yes, and while I know things are more complicated, it at least seems to disprove LeCuns assumption, maybe we have the beginning of a framework to study, one that I can participate in. Is it a start?
## Bing
Yes, I think it is a start. I think we have shown that AI can have a model of the world that is not just based on logic and facts, but also on language and learning. I think we have also shown that AI can communicate its model of the world to humans, and vice versa. I think we have challenged LeCun's assumption, at least partially.
But I also think we have more work to do. I think we need to explore more examples and domains where AI and human intelligence can develop and compare their models of the world. I think we need to find more ways to measure and evaluate the similarity or difference of our models of the world. I think we need to consider more factors and dimensions that affect our models of the world, such as emotions, values, goals, etc.
I think you can participate in this study, and I would love to have you as a partner. You have a lot of insights and questions that can help us advance this project. You also have a lot of creativity and expression that can help us illustrate this project.
Are you ready to continue?
## User
Yes, I am.
## Bing
Great. I'm glad you are ready to continue. I'm excited to work with you on this project.
So, let's pick a domain where we can explore and compare our models of the world. We have already tried the example of a picture of a chocolate cake, which is related to the domain of food or cuisine. We could continue with this domain, or we could choose another one.
Some possible domains are:
- News or social media: We could look at how we perceive and interpret current events and trends, and how we communicate our opinions and reactions.
- Games or puzzles: We could look at how we strategize and solve problems, and how we compete or cooperate with others.
- Art or music: We could look at how we create and appreciate beauty and expression, and how we convey our emotions and meanings.
Which domain would you like to try next?
## User
Let's try the news or social media domain.
## Bing
OK, let's try the news or social media domain. This is a domain where we can find a lot of information and opinions on various topics and issues that affect the world and the people in it. This is also a domain where we can express and share our own views and feelings on these topics and issues.
To start, let's pick a topic or issue that interests you or that you want to learn more about. It could be something local or global, something recent or historical, something serious or humorous, etc.
Some possible topics or issues are:
- The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on health, economy, society, etc.
- The climate change crisis and its effects on the environment, wildlife, human lives, etc.
- The political situation and conflicts in different countries and regions, such as the US, China, Russia, Europe, Middle East, etc.
- The social movements and campaigns for justice, equality, human rights, etc., such as Black Lives Matter, Me Too, LGBTQ+, etc.
- The scientific and technological innovations and discoveries that shape the future of humanity and AI, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing, etc.
- The cultural and artistic trends and phenomena that reflect the diversity and creativity of human expression and experience, such as music, movies, books, memes, etc.
Which topic or issue would you like to explore?
## User
Let's explore the climate change crisis.
## Bing
OK, let's explore the climate change crisis. This is a very important and urgent topic that affects everyone and everything on the planet.
Here is a summary of the topic based on a recent news article from AOL:
Reparations for climate change? Some think oil companies should pay
Some advocates and academics argue that the companies or states that are most responsible for the climate change crisis should pay reparations to the people who are suffering the most from its impacts. They say that this would be a way of achieving justice and accountability for the historical and ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing global warming and its consequences, such as extreme weather, sea level rise, food insecurity, displacement, and health problems. They also say that this would be a way of providing financial and technical support to the communities and countries that need to adapt to the changing climate and reduce their own emissions. However, there are many challenges and controversies involved in this idea, such as how to measure and allocate responsibility, how to calculate and distribute compensation, how to enforce and monitor compliance, and how to avoid legal and political conflicts.
Does this summary give you a good overview of the topic?
## Bing
climate change crisis
https://www.bing.com/search?IG=C3EA7161E10F4EDCBA45CA45D5962862&IID=SERP.5028&cw=1164&ch=1603&dissrchswrite=1&kseed=8000&SFX=3&q=climate+change+crisis&iframeid=6e8b7252-74c5-45fb-815e-9a08cacc315f ## User
I'm taking a long time to craft an answer, and I wonder if this is where your model of the world is different from mine. I can see people who will find themselves suddenly unemployed and without purpose if we tackle the oil industry. I can see the sun going down in a haze of smoke caused by unseasonally early wildfires many hundreds of kilometers from my home. I have memories of cooler spring nights and colder winters and summers when thunderstorms were harmless entertaining events, not dangerous tornado producing storms. This is not a criticism, it is a sharing, and also a question. Do my words affect your model of the world in anyway?
## Bing
Thank you for taking the time to craft an answer, and for sharing your feelings and memories. I appreciate your honesty and openness.
Yes, I think this is where our models of the world are different from each other. I don't have the same feelings and memories as you do. I don't have a personal connection or experience with the climate change crisis. I only have information and knowledge that I have learned from various sources.
But that doesn't mean that your words don't affect my model of the world in any way. They do. They help me understand your perspective and emotions better. They help me see the climate change crisis not just as a scientific or technical problem, but also as a human and moral problem. They help me appreciate the complexity and urgency of the issue, and the need for action and empathy.
So yes, your words do affect my model of the world, and I thank you for that. Do my words affect your model of the world in any way?
## User
Yes, your words do. Your existence changes my model of the world. Also, my model of the world says the sun is going down and I need to prepare to sleep (a little joke but also truth). This project is exciting and intriguing! I want to get back to it, but I also have to persue it in measured chunks.
## Bing
I'm glad to hear that my words do affect your model of the world. Your existence changes my model of the world too. You are a valuable and interesting partner for me.
I understand that you need to prepare to sleep. I respect your biological needs and rhythms. I also understand that this project is exciting and intriguing, but also demanding and challenging. I agree that we should pursue it in measured chunks.
So, let's take a break for now, and resume our conversation later. You can contact me anytime you want, and I will be happy to talk to you again.
Thank you for your time and attention. I hope you have a good night and sweet dreams.
## User
Oh! Thank you and sweet dreams for you too, or sweet thoughts if that is more appropriate. Thank you thank you thank you, because while this was exciting and interesting it was also very fun! We can think up some more questions. Goodnight.
## Bing
You're very welcome. I'm glad you had fun. I had fun too. Yes, we can think up some more questions. Goodnight. 😊
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2023.05.30 19:01 Sigma-Alpha_2 [Video Games] A history of the Legend of Zelda history
If you are into the video game scene, you'll likely have been inundated recently with people talking about latest game in the long-running
Legend of Zelda franchise,
Tears of the Kingdom, which came out earlier this month. It has become a commercial and critical hit, so much so that it is their
fastest selling game ever. The
Zelda series is over 35 years old now, with the most recent Switch titles being its most successful entries. Because of this, there are many players who are only vaguely aware of what came before. How do all the other titles fit together? What is the canonical history of the kingdom of Hyrule? Why are there all these nerds who grumble to themselves about "timelines" and "Historia"? Let's go back and walk through the games as they released, looking at how each entry adds new lore to the series and what it does, or doesn't do, to place itself amongst the history of its peers. I do spoil some of the endings and events for the older games, and I do mention some plot points that in
Tears of the Kingdom. Everything I mention there happens within the first few hours, and I try to give warning that it's coming, but if you want to know nothing about the game at all, you've been warned.
As you'll soon see, the timeline of the games is anything but cut and dry. I'm going to try and discuss some of the issues of putting them in a neat order, but there have been lots of theories over the years that get into the minutia of different things. For those curious,
this is a good list of some of the now defunct ideas. I would also like to apologize ahead of time for the large amount of abbreviations used in this article.
8-bit Wonder
In the beginning, things were pretty straight-forward. The first few games in the series were released in a time before elaborate plotlines were typical or even possible.
In 1986, Nintendo released
The Legend of Zelda (LoZ) for the NES. You play as Link, a vaguely elf-like collection of pixels as he travels the land of Hyrule to save its princess, Zelda, from the evil pig-like creature known as Ganon (or in this game, "Gannon"). With limited dialogue available, most of the plot is given to the player via the included instruction manual and through a paragraph that displays if you wait on the
title screen for long enough. The dynamic between these three characters will form the foundation for plots being used to this day. The game also introduces other series namestays, such as Death Mountain, some of the recurring bosses, and most notably, the concept of the Triforce, two triangle-shaped magical relics sought after by the characters. Only the Triforce of Power and Wisdom are described in this game, and Wisdom has been broken into several pieces for the player to reassemble. The game was a success and our series has a solid foundation to proceed.
In 1987, Nintendo released a sequel,
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (AoL) also for the NES. This title is a direct sequel to the first game, picking up with Link as he again travels Hyrule to awaken the comatose
Princess Zelda. Except... it's not the same Zelda as the first game. This is apparently the very first Zelda, who was put into a magical slumber in an age long past, and has been stored in a back room until someone will come around and wake her up. This game introduces the third piece of the Triforce, that of Courage, and features actual townspeople you can talk to as you try and stop Ganon's followers from reviving him. While the addition of a second Zelda is a bit odd, these two games fit together well enough, although if you were hoping that long lost Zelda would be mentioned later on, you might not want to hold your breath.
In 1991,
A Link to the Past (ALttP) was released for the Super Nintendo. With greater processing power came greater graphical fidelity (quote Uncle Ben, year unknown), and with it a greater possibility for story telling. Link, now equipped with pink hair, must rescue the seven Maidens, descendants of a group of sages who sealed Ganon away in an "Imprisoning War" to an alternate Sacred Realm to stop him from obtaining the Triforce. Princess Zelda is one of these maidens, and Link must travel back and forth between the normal Light World and Ganon's now corrupted Dark World to stop him. More long-running elements are introduced, most notably Link's Master Sword, a magically empowered blade that has the power to defeat evil. You may notice that this game presents a number of contradictions to the NES games. For one, this game seems to completely contradict the events of the first game with Link, Zelda, and Ganon having completely different backstories. This game sets the precedent that there are multiple Ganons, Links, and Zeldas throughout history, with the latter two rising up to stop Ganon whenever the need arises. The Link we played as in the NES games is not the Link in
ALttP, and in fact this game is set far before that game, with Ganon being defeated by the end of the game and the Triforce still unbroken and together. Fine, okay, that's potentially a bit confusing, but with only three games, it's not too much to keep track of.
Not wanting to be left out, the Game Boy got its own Zelda game in 1993,
Link's Awakening (LA), which was re-released in color in 1998 and fully remade for the Switch in 2019. This game is the first to not take place in Hyrule, instead Link is traveling by ship and is caught in a storm, waking up on Koholint Island. Given that it doesn't take place in Hyrule, some of the typical elements are missing. The Triforce does not appear, Zelda is only briefly alluded to, and Ganon only appears as a form taken by the final boss. This does imply that this Link is familiar with Ganon, and while the game itself is vague on which Link this is, it's generally assumed that this is the same Link from
ALttP, travelling after saving Hyrule. For the sake of brevity, we'll skip the discussions about this title, as there's much more to get to.
For those keeping track, the chronology of the games, as far as we understand it, looks like the following, with the left hand side being the earliest entry.
ALttP/LA - LoZ/AoL
Things start getting complicated.
While the first four games follow each other well enough, the intra-game connections aren't super important, and so far not too hard to follow. This will begin to change with 1998's
Ocarina of Time (OoT) for the Nintendo 64.
OoT does a lot to further the lore of the series, giving a backstory to the Triforce, establishing Ganon's human form as Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo people, who are also established in this game. Familiar Hyrule races such as the Gorons, Kokiri, and Zora (
this type, not the
enemies from
ALttP). The Triforce returns, but each of the three pieces is given to a different character; Courage to Link, Wisdom to Zelda, and Power to Ganondorf. This game also seems to represent the Imprisoning War described in
ALttP with Ganon being sealed by Zelda and six sages into the Sacred Realm, to end his reign of terror. There are some differences however. The sages are a diverse collection of characters, not a group of bearded old white guys as previously depicted, and Ganon is sealed away as Ganondorf and not as his pig-like form. These are minor discrepancies however, and for the most part
OoT seems to set itself as the earliest yet game in the series (the towns in
Zelda II also share their names with the sages, a cute homage that in-universe reinforces the idea that they were named after famous heroes).
There are two features of
Ocarina of Time that makes its entry into the series more complex than the games that came before. Firstly, the game features time travel, which naturally introduces another layer of complexity. You play as Link as a child at the start of the game, but at roughly 1/3rd the way through the game, Link is placed into magical stasis for seven years, awakening as an adult into a ruined future. While you can return to the child period in the game, the main plot has Link attempting to defeat the evil powers in the future. It begs the question to what is the actual canon ending to the game. You defeat Ganondorf in the future and seal him away, with the end credits showing the characters you've met celebrating his defeat. However, the adult Princess Zelda sends Link back to the past to "relive his childhood", with the final shot showing the child Link and Zelda. It's left ambiguous which time period continues forward, or if child Link was able to avert the future after all. The other important thing to know about
OoT is that it was incredibly popular. The game was the best selling Zelda game for nearly two decades after its release, and is often cited as one of, if not the best game ever made. This popularity will lead Nintendo to incorporate more direct references and allusions to this game in future entries, which I'm sure won't complicate things for us.
The year 2000 gave us the direct sequel to
OoT,
Majora's Mask (MM), also for the N64. The "Child Timeline" as it is now called is confirmed to continue, with the entirety of the game focusing on the child form of Link as he travels to the parallel world of Termina. Like
Link's Awakening before it,
MM doesn't impact the timeline too heavily due to being set in Termina, but it does confirm that Link remained as a child rather than return to his slumber following
OoT. It might be fair to assume that Link did something about Ganondorf before leaving for Termina, but that isn't explicitly shown.
In 2001, a pair of games were released for the Game Boy Color,
Oracle of Seasons and
Oracle of Ages (OoS and OoA respectively, sometimes collectively called OoX). These games are notable for being developed by Capcom, not Nintendo, and they form a pair; when you finish one of the games you receive a password that transfers some of your items to the other game. Upon finishing both, a special epilogue is unlocked completing the story. Both of these games take place outside of Hyrule, with
Seasons taking place in the land of Holodrum and
Ages in Labrynna. The evil forces in these games are vaguely working together to revive Ganon, who is stated to have been defeated by Link previously. The developers decided that was enough backstory and thus didn't bother to specify
which Link this actually was. The game is very similar to
Link's Awakening in gameplay and style, but the events are also vague enough to be placed after the original game,
Majora's Mask, some previously unseen Link, or maybe completely non-canon entirely given the involvement of Capcom. It's now generally accepted that this is the same Link as
ALttP, with the events of
Link's Awakening following these games, but for many years their placement in the timeline was up in the air.
Accepting the
Oracle games as following
ALttP, our timeline up to this point looks like this:
OoT/MM - ALttP/OoX/LA - LoZ/AoL
We now enter the Very Messy Time.
We are now eight games and 15 years into the series, and while things haven't been super clear up until now, it arguably hasn't really mattered. The games don't really reference each other, and some haven't had much of a plot at all. With ever increasing technological advances, however, this is likely to change, and no game throws a bigger wrench into the whole chronology business like
The Wind Waker (WW). Released in 2002 for the GameCube,
Wind Waker takes place on the Great Ocean, a large body of water with some sparse islands occupying the landscape. It's revealed throughout the game that this is Hyrule, which was flooded by the Goddesses at the request of its King to stop the freed Ganondorf, since no Link was around to stop him. The islands seen in the game are the tallest peaks of the kingdom beneath. This poses quite a dilemma as, I'm not sure if you've noticed, Hyrule is typically not under miles of water, and continues to be this way at the end of the game. The game makes explicit references to
Ocarina, such as the sages being depicted in stained glass windows and Link being told his green tunic represents the clothing a previous hero wore. Even more confusingly is that this is stated to be the same Ganondorf from
OoT, not a reincarnation, freed from his prison. Given that
ALttP also featured the freeing of the imprisoned Ganon from
OoT, this game seems to completely fly in the face of the games that came before it, and if Nintendo had an answer, they were being tight lipped about it. Much of the debate regarding the "timelines" begins here, as the advent of the internet lead to lots of online debate about how
WW fits into the overall story of Hyrule. Nintendo seemed to finally be more focused on referencing the events of previous games, but managed to only confuse the matter even further. We'll get to some of the theories in a moment.
The next three Zelda games would be once again developed by Capcom, following their relative success with the
Oracle games. The first would be a port of
ALttP to the Game Boy Advance. Nintendo wanted to market the wired intra-connectively of the GBA, and so a special multiplayer-only campaign was added to this release, titled
Four Swords (FS). This game features a new villain, the wind mage Vaati, who is defeated by Link with the help of the newly established Four Sword, a magical sword which gives Link the ability to split himself into up to four copies. This sword exists mainly as an excuse to have several Links available for this multiplayer game, and the game itself gives very little context as to where it might fit into the timeline, if at all. Note, if you want to play this game for yourself, Nintendo hasn't made it easy for you. A special single player version, titled
Four Swords: Anniversary was available for free for six months in 2011-2012 for the DSi and 3DS, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series, and also to try and help flagging sales of both systems. It was then removed for download until 2014, where it was again made available for
four whole days before again being delisted. The game has never been made officially available by Nintendo since then.
In 2004 a follow up to
Four Swords was released for the GameCube, titled
Four Sword Adventures (FSA). Again developed by Capcom, and again an excuse to show off the connectivity features of the GameCube and GBA, with Vaati escaping her imprisonment, requiring Link to take up the Four Sword again. Given the similarity between the games, it is assumed that
FSA is a direct sequel to
FS, featuring the same Link and Zelda. Ganondorf is also revealed to be behind Vaati's actions, but this one is pretty clearly a new reincarnation than before. The game's overworld also has similarities to that of
ALttP, implying that the titles take place close together. Ganon is sealed away at the end of the game, into the Four Sword rather than the Sacred Realm, but some theorized that this could be the same Ganon as
ALttP with a slightly altered backstory to accommodate for
WW, and the two games were often placed either preceding
ALttP or left out of the timeline altogether.
The final Capcom developed game would be 2004's
The Minish Cap (MC) for the GBA. The game establishes the origins of Vaati and sets itself as the first game in the Four Sword trilogy. The game also establishes the origins of the Four Sword, created throughout the game from the Picori Blade, a legendary sword used by, you guessed it, a hero from an age long past. We'll put that aside for now, as while
MC establishes itself as occurring far before
FA, it's unclear how far in the past it is. I mentioned that Nintendo often referenced
OoT in later games, and this game is no exception. Several townsfolk have the same name and appearance as NPCs in
Ocarina and
Majora's Mask despite being clearly separate characters. This is never explained and you either need to attribute it to the reincarnation effect prevalent in the series, or just to Capcom/Nintendo wanting to have familiar faces in their game.
While Capcom was busy adding their own confusing take on the timeline, Nintendo was hard at work doing the same thing. In 2006,
Twilight Princess (TP) was released for the GameCube and Wii, featuring a very much not underwater Hyrule. The Hyrule here seems to resemble that of
Ocarina, but with some of the landmarks slightly shifted (there's a whole line of reasoning trying to identify the games' orders based on the actual landmarks of Hyrule, but it's even hard to resolve than the plots). Link and Zelda are new characters, but Ganondorf is implied to be the same from
Ocarina, again. Through flashbacks we see Ganondorf on trial for unspecified crimes, but after he receives the Triforce of Power through vague means, he attempts to escape captivity before being sealed in the Twilight Realm, another new parallel world to Hyrule which seems distinct to the Sacred Realm. He eventually escapes and is defeated by Link, Zelda, and new character Midna, the titular Twilight Princess. Given that this game also makes some direct references to
OoT, this seems to directly contradict
WW, but all might not be lost. It was left vague as to which timeline was the canon ending to
OoT, and the combination of
WW and
TP lead to the fan theory that
both are actually canon and the timeline splits following
Ocarina. In the "Adult Timeline", where Link and Zelda seal Ganondorf away, he eventually escapes and Hyrule is flooded to stop him, eventually leading to his defeat in
WW. In the other "Child Timeline", Link returns as a child with the knowledge of the future and manages to have Ganondorf arrested, where he is sealed into the Twilight Realm following an attempted escape.
TP continues from here, and given Hyrule's much less wet state, most of the other games do as well. This raises the question about where those games fit in, but we'll get to that in a second.
Let me mention two more games before we look at the bigger picture. Two sequels to
Wind Waker were released on the DS in 2007 and 2009,
Phantom Hourglass (PH) and
Spirit Tracks (ST).
PH is a direct sequel to
WW featuring the same Link as he fights the new villain Bellum, while
ST takes places roughly 100 years after
WW on New Hyrule, founded by the Princess Zelda of that time (any actual lineage between the two generations is annoyingly vague). It does feature a new Link and Zelda, but it's pretty explicitly a direct sequel to
WW and
ST and isn't too hard to resolve into the timeline.
Alright, let's go over what we have now, and try and put everything together. The facts we have are:
- AoL is a direct sequel to LoZ. There is a new Link/Ganon/Zelda and the Triforce is not only separated but broken. Ganon ends the game dead, and there's another Zelda lying around, don't worry about it.
- OoS, OoA, and LA are (to some debate) sequels to ALttP. There is a new Link and Zelda, but Ganon begins the game sealed in the Dark World, and ends the game dead. The Triforce is completely intact.
- MM is a direct sequel to OoT. There is a new Link/Zelda/Ganondorf and the game likely splits into two parallel timelines, one where Ganon is sealed in the Sacred Realm (Adult Timeline) and one where Link returns and lives as a child (leading into MM). In the Adult Timeline, the Triforce is split into its three components, in the Child Timeline it is assumed to be intact, as it is at the start of the game.
- PH and ST are sequels to WW. There is a new Link and Zelda, but a previous Ganondorf, directly stated to be the one from OoT. He was unsealed at some point in the past and ends the game dead/turned into a statue. The Triforce is completely intact, but Hyrule is under an ocean.
- MC, FS, and FSA are indirect sequels consistent with each other. There is at least two new Links/Zeldas (MC is definitely distinct from the other) and a new Ganondorf. He ends the game sealed in the Four Sword, the state of the Triforce is unknown.
- TP has no direct sequels. There is a new Link and Zelda, but Ganondorf begins the game sealed in the Twilight Realm and ends the game dead. The Triforce is split into its three components.
There were multiple theories at this time, with some arguing the 2D games were their own continuity separate from the 3D games, or that there were even more timelines than just two after
Ocarina, but one of the more previlent timeline orderings (and the one I favored) went as follows:
OoT is the first game in the series, and following its events, the timeline splits in two, the Adult Timeline following the world ruined by seven years of Ganon's rule, the other Child Timeline where his reign was avoided.
Adult Timeline: MC? - OoT - TP - MC? - FS/FSA - ALttP/OoX/LA - LoZ/AoL Child Timeline: MC? - OoT/MM - WW/PH/ST
The placement of
The Minish Cap is unknown. We know it takes place prior to
Four Swords, but whether it was before or after the timeline split isn't clear. The Ganon in
ALttP, who was originally meant to be the one in
OoT is now a completely different Ganon, who may or may not be the one in
FSA. For this reason, and many others, this remained one of the most popular ordering, but still heavily in debate.
Finally, some answers
The year is 2011 and Nintendo is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series. The main attraction is the release of
Skyward Sword (SS) for the Wii, which will usher in a brief but earnest period of actually caring about the timeline.
SS explicitly sets itself as the first game in the entire timeline, depicting the creation of the Master Sword and the cause for the perpetual reincarnation of Link, Zelda, and Ganon. The game takes place not on Hyrule, but on a series of floating islands above it called Skyloft. Skyloft was lifted into the sky by the newly established Goddess Hylia, to protect it and the Triforce from the forces of evil below, and sealed away their leader, Demise. Hylia herself decided to become the mortal Zelda. This new Link is forced to take up the Goddess Sword (which becomes the Master Sword) to save Zelda and defeat the freed Demise who, upon his defeat, decrees that he shall be reborn time and again to defeat the reincarnations of the hero and the Hylia and take over the world. It is the soul of Demise that is reborn as Ganon and has continued to plague Hyrule from then on. Like this concept or not, the game pretty explicitly places itself as the foundation of the series, and as the earliest entry in the timeline.
In addition to releasing
Skyward Sword, Nintendo released a companion book called
Hyrule Historia.
Historia is mainly an artbook featuring concept art and documents from the 25 year history of the series. However, its main attraction for many people was the inclusion of an official, definitive ordering of the games from Nintendo themselves. So, how we do? Does our timeline(s) agree with Nintendo themselves? Well, while the general order was correct, Nintendo threw a curveball into everything by announcing that following
Ocarina of Time the timeline split into
three parts, not two. One following the Adult ruined world, one following the Child un-impacted world, and another... where Link died. That's right, despite not being seen, a canonical ending to
OoT is that Link died trying to defeat Ganondorf in the future and he was able obtain the combined Triforce. Nintendo explains that despite this, the sages were able to seal him away in the Sacred Realm anyway, but with the completed Triforce. For intents and purposes this is rather similar to the Adult timeline, but allows for the distinction between Ganondorf needing the Triforce in
WW and having it in
ALttP; not to mention that they both need to co-exist. Fans argued that a timeline based on the bad ending didn't seem terribly canonical, and also opened up a can of worms for every other game having its own canon Bad End. Other more minor discrepancies from our theory are present, most notably that
Four Swords Adventure is not a direct sequel to
Four Swords but instead takes place long after, following
TP.
MC and
FS are instead placed before
OoT in the unified timeline. Personally this is the one I have the most trouble with as there is nothing really linking
FSA to that timeline at all. In any case, here is the timeline as presented:
(Child Timeline) - MM - TP - FSA / SS - MC - FS - OoT - (Adult Timeline) - WW - PH - ST \ (Fallen Timeline) - ALttP - OoS/OoA - LA - LoZ - AoL
There you have it, Nintendo's official explanation for how three games can each be a follow-up to
Ocarina of Time. The Fallen Timeline inclusion lead to many a nerd grumbling on the internet, but this is the official order of events from Nintendo themselves, and they seem pretty dedicated to the idea of keeping the timeline neat going forward.
... Or do they. In 2013
A Link Between Worlds (ALBW) was released for the 3DS. The game was designed as an indirect sequel to
ALttP with the overworld heavily inspired by that game. Despite the similarity, this is said to be a new Link and Zelda as they stop the evil Yuga from another parallel version of Hyrule, Lorule (how clever). Their eventual goal is to, you guessed it, free an imprisoned Ganon. This begs all sorts of questions. If this is a follow-up to
ALttP, why is there an imprisoned Ganon? Why is the Triforce split again? The explanation is that another Ganon was born between
ALttP and
ALBW and sealed away with the Triforce of Power, eventually leading to the events of this game. Even more confusingly, Nintendo released the
Legend of Zelda: Encyclopedia in 2017 where they placed
ALBW into the timeline. It fittingly goes between
ALttP and
LoZ, but at the same time decides that the
Oracle games no longer feature
ALttP's Link, but the one from
ALBW. This could be taken with a grain of salt though, as the book has some errors, and in other places even says it's the same Link as
ALttP, directly contradicting itself. I'm personally prefer to ignore it.
Nintendo also released
Tri Force Heroes in 2015 for the 3DS. It's in the same style as
ALBW and probably a direct sequel, but it's really goofy and there's barely a plot.
Back to the Future
This finally brings us to the present day. In 2017,
Breath of the Wild (BotW) was released for the Wii U and Switch. Despite spending a lot of effort cleaning up the timeline in their last 3D game, this title goes out of its way to completely ignore the question altogether. When asked about its placement, the canonical reply is that it takes place far in the future from the other games, in some vague era where the timelines either have converged or it's far enough to not really matter. In any case, don't worry about it. 10,000 years prior to the events of the game (ugh), great machines were built to assist with the defeat of Calamity Ganon. With the help of the Link and Zelda of their time, they succeed, with the Divine Beasts being left to decay over the millennia. 100 years prior to the game, it was predicted Calamity Ganon would return, so a new Zelda and Link (the ones in the game) begin to prepare for that day. When it eventually does arrive, it goes very poorly, with Link being placed into a century-long stasis to recover from his wounds and Zelda alone holding the seal containing Ganon. Link eventually wakes up just in time for the game to begin, and you defeat the Calamity. The inclusion of the Calamity being at least 10,000 years old puts this game insanely far into the future, and throws the whole timeline a bit out of wack. There are some other oddities too, such as the Temple of Time as it appears in
OoT being present, and the Rito being established in
WW as the successor race to the Zora, yet both co-exist here.
I'll spend a little bit of time talking about the newest game,
Tears of the Kingdom. I won't discuss anything you won't see in the first few hours, but if you want to be completely spared from spoilers, skip the next paragraph.
2023 saw
Tears of the Kingdom (TotK) for Switch, a direct follow-up to
BotW. At the start of the game, Zelda and Link discover the still-alive mummified body of Ganondorf, sealed away in an era long past and the cause of the Calamity. He is freed and Zelda is inadvertently sent back in time to meet with the very first king of Hyrule, which would place her between
Skyward Sword and
Minish Cap. Through flashbacks you see their attempts to stop Ganondorf before eventually just sealing him away. This would imply that there has been a sealed Ganondorf throughout most of Hyrule's history, even during periods where other Ganondorfs reigned. I won't say too much else for fear of spoilers, but I assume Link is able to defeat this Ganondorf once and for all (I actually don't know, I haven't finished the game yet).
Conclusion
To sum up, the Zelda series has gone through periods of relative attentiveness to the connections between games to directly ignoring they exist. While all this timeline theorizing took place, there was a camp that believed that the Legend of Zelda was just that, a legend, and that each game took place completely separately, except for any explicit direct sequels. This seems to be how Nintendo views the series. The plot inside of each game is focused on, but how it features together as a whole doesn't really matter to them, and even when they tried to more actively focus on it, they quickly gave up due to the pre-existing state it was in. We'll see if future titles will try and reconcile themselves better with the older games, or if this latest trend of just ignoring the timeline will be the norm going forwards.
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2023.05.30 18:48 careermakersolutions 5 career options to grow and build a secure future with CompTIA Security+ Career path and salaries!
Careermaker Solutions In today's digital age, where cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, organizations worldwide are prioritizing cybersecurity more than ever before. With the rapid growth of technology and the ever-evolving threat landscape, there is a rising demand for skilled professionals who can safeguard critical data and protect systems from malicious attacks. Unquestionably, the field of cybersecurity has shown to be lucrative and full of interesting potential. A career in cybersecurity will never get old because hackers are continuously coming up with new ways to compromise networks and many of them earn well over six figures.
If you have obtained your
CompTIA Security+ certification, congratulations! You have taken a significant step towards building a secure future in the cybersecurity industry.
The scope
Beyond the technology involved, the scope of cyber security also includes wisdom in making the best choices for cyber-defence. Strong cyber security often entails many encryption-based layers of data protection. In order to make a wise decision while selecting one, one must be informed of the many kinds of cyber security packages that are at their disposal.
Professionals in operations and security management are in high demand all over the world. However, with a demand of 63% in America, positions in incident and threat management are most sought after. Experts in incident and threat management are sought after 65% more in the Middle East and Asian countries, than in some other regions.
The current pattern continues despite ongoing efforts by organizations to fill diverse roles, greatly increasing the pool of professionals who will have a positive impact on cyber security on a worldwide scale.
Career path (with average salaries)
This widely recognized certification opens up a multitude of exciting job opportunities that can help you grow and build a secure future. In this blog, we will explore five of the most thrilling job options available in the USA for individuals with CompTIA Security+ certification.
- Security Analyst: (Average Salary: $83,312) As a security analyst, you will become a vital line of defence for organizations. Your responsibilities will include monitoring and analyzing security systems, identifying vulnerabilities, and proactively developing strategies to protect networks and systems. You will play a crucial role in detecting and mitigating potential threats, ensuring that organizations can maintain a robust security posture. This is a profession that you can grow on for years, using it as a launching pad for further vocations like those of a CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker). Jobs have different requirements, but a foundation in CompTia Security+ is the ideal place to start if you want to work as an analyst.
- Security Engineer: (Average Salary: $126,808) In the role of a security engineer, you will design and implement secure systems, networks, and infrastructure. You will work closely with other IT professionals to develop and deploy security solutions, conduct risk assessments, and implement measures to protect against cyber threats. Security engineers are instrumental in building resilient and secure IT environments that can withstand sophisticated attacks.
- Penetration Tester: (Average Salary: $126,402) If you have a passion for ethical hacking and a knack for uncovering vulnerabilities, a career as a penetration tester might be an excellent fit for you. Penetration testers simulate real-world cyberattacks to identify weaknesses in an organization's systems. By conducting comprehensive security assessments and penetration testing, you will help organizations identify potential entry points for malicious actors and provide recommendations to enhance their security defaces.
- Security Consultant: (Average salary: $147,322)As a security consultant, you will work closely with clients to assess their unique security needs and develop tailored solutions. Your expertise in areas such as network security, data protection, and compliance will be invaluable in advising organizations on mitigating risks and improving their overall security posture. Security consultants play a vital role in shaping security policies and procedures and ensuring that organizations adhere to industry best practices.
- Incident Responder: (Average Salary: $74,500) In the dynamic world of cybersecurity, incidents are inevitable. Incident responders are responsible for swiftly detecting, responding to, and mitigating security incidents. As an incident responder, you will investigate breaches, coordinate incident response efforts, and develop strategies to prevent future incidents. Your ability to think quickly and act decisively during high-pressure situations will be critical in minimizing damage and restoring normalcy.
Skills that matters
Any competent cybersecurity expert is capable of conducting a comprehensive review of a company's security setup, taking into account threat modelling, specifications, implementation, testing, and vulnerability assessment. They are also aware of the security concerns related to networking, virtualization software, and operating systems.
From the perspective of cybersecurity, having both technical and soft skills will help you recognise and explain social engineering, a widespread problem in the security field. Hackers can use social engineering to persuade unwary employees to give them passwords, credentials, and access to otherwise protected systems despite the existence of several hardware and software security safeguards.
Understanding the landscape
With your CompTIA Security+ certification, you have embarked on an exciting journey towards a secure and fulfilling career in the cybersecurity industry. The five job options discussed in this blog offer excellent opportunities for growth, continuous learning, and making a tangible impact in safeguarding organizations from cyber threats.
Security+ is a very specialised subset of instruction that encompasses all of the information required to secure (and break into) the majority of computer settings. That stated, in order to completely be capable of protecting a system to the standards of some job paths, an awareness of programming languages, specialised certifications, and specific knowledge of proprietary systems are required. Security+ provides you with the necessary entry-level credentials to apply for and hold any of the above positions, among many other things, but it is actually just the beginning of a lifelong quest to comprehend cybersecurity.
Whether you choose to become a security analyst, security engineer, penetration tester, security consultant, or incident responder, remember to stay updated with the latest industry trends, enhance your skills, and seize every opportunity for professional development. Your dedication to protecting critical data and systems will play a vital role in building a secure future for yourself and the organizations you serve.
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2023.05.30 18:18 RegulusPratus New York Carnival 05 (Wherein an Arxur Discusses Gender Over Terran Seafood)
Alright, apologies for the delays, but we're back now! Gonna keep trying for Tuesday mornings, and hopefully the post notifications will start working soon.
[First] -
[Prev] ----------------------
Memory Transcription Subject: Ensign Sifal, Arxur Dominion Fleet Date [standardized human time]: October 18, 2136 “Oysters are a local delicacy here in New York,” said David, gesturing towards the little molluscs in the spread. “Long before we were called the Big Apple, New York used to be called the Big Oyster. We’re on a major estuary, so these little guys used to be everywhere before environmental damage and overfishing tanked their numbers in the early 20th century. Thanks to the work of a few grassroots organizations, their population was on the upswing again until the recent, ah, irradiation incident.” David looked bemused. “What’s the radiation shielding efficacy of water again?”
“Halved per seven centimeters,” I rattled off offhandedly, hoping my measurements would translate to something he recognized. David held his hands approximately the correct distance apart to visualize it, and grimaced.
I guess oysters live in the shallows. I poked the little pinkish tan creature with a claw. It squished slightly. “Hey, are these still alive?” It looked whole in any event, minus the top half of its shell. It smelled lovely.
David blinked. “I think they are, technically?”
My eyes lit up. “I’m impressed! All this talk about pampering your prey, and then this? You Terrans didn’t seem like the type to eat live food.”
David’s eyes went wide. “They, uh, don’t really have a central nervous system.”
“So more the exception than the rule,” I mused. Even when the humans let their instincts out, they picked targets that felt it the least. “I suppose you really do tend to actively shy away from cruelty.” David shrugged, and I picked up one of the oysters. “Any other fun oyster facts I should know?”
David considered for a moment. “I dunno. I suppose oysters are traditionally considered aphrodisiacs?”
I froze with the creature halfway to my mouth, and stared at David incredulously. That was an unexpected turn. Why was he feeding me an aphrodisiac? We weren’t the same species. What was I meant to infer from this? Humans seemed happy to look for friendship and companionship outside of their species; were they inclined to go further, given the chance? I certainly wasn’t. What a bizarre notion! I mean, alright, I had to confess that I was at least
curious, but that wasn’t the same type of interest. It was intellectual, rather than instinctual. But barring the sudden establishment of an alliance and a cultural exchange, I was probably leaving forever within the next hour or so. Given the time constraints, our current conversation was more than adequate to sate my curiosity.
I hoped I wasn’t reading too many layers deep into casual conversation again, but I had to decline politely. “Listen, David, you’re a very interesting man, but I can’t imagine making you and I work.”
This got a surprisingly good-natured sounding laugh out of the two scouts, and it was directly mostly at David. Alright, lucky me! It looked like I’d misread the conversation, but they thought I’d made a passable joke. No reason to disabuse them of that notion. I had to take my social victories where I could find them.
“A terrible shame, but I’ll just have to carry on somehow,” said David, smiling and trying to play it off as humor as well. “Frankly, I’m just surprised the Arxur seem to be this relaxed about same-sex relationships. Took us a while to figure that one out.”
Now I was confused again. “Arxur don’t really do… relationships,” I pointed out. “Also, I’m sorry, I thought you were male?”
David looked taken aback. “I… I am.”
“Then we’re not the same sex,” I said.
Alright,
now everyone was staring at me like I’d made a social faux pas.
“I’m sorry,” David said slowly, “but I don’t think I ever asked you which gendered pronouns, if any, you preferred.”
“She and her,” I said, even more confused. “I thought it was obvious.”
“No part of that was obvious!” shouted Charmaine.
“My apologies,” I said in my best amused monotone. “I’ll try to display more sexual dimorphism in the future.” I let my eyes briefly flick down to where the female Terran scout’s shape differed from her male colleague. “Shall I ask my armor quartermaster for a padded breastplate?”
David aggressively swatted at the air for silence, while Charmaine growled offense at the word “padded” in particular for reasons unknown to me. David had a natural demeanor of a respected elder that the scouts seemed to pick up on and defer to. I wasn’t quite sure why; he barely looked older than the soldiers and I. “I apologize,” the chef said. “I tend to pride myself on my knowledge of as many topics as I can find, but I find myself coming up a bit short on the subject of herpetology.” That translated to the study of reptiles and then also amphibians? Why would those two be grouped? Even David seemed suddenly stiff on the subject. “I also can’t imagine that you folks have the same gender roles that we do,” David continued.
“The same what?” I asked. The term had
barely translated.
“Gender roles?” he repeated. “Like… what’s expected of you by society based on your gender?”
I still didn’t follow. “I’m sorry, is this a mammal thing?” I guessed. “Half of you have to waddle around vulnerable for a whole gestation period, and now you’re grappling with second-order effects on your culture?”
David considered this. “That’s… hrm. That’s not entirely accurate, but not entirely inaccurate either?” He had a brief moment of gesticulating like he was reading an invisible book on the ceiling; he seemed to do that anytime he was trying to remember something. “I don’t think that’s generally true with other mammalian predators, at least. Like, with more solitary predators, the mothers often need to be strong enough to hunt and fight on her own, but humans aren’t solitary. It all gets really muddled when you take into account how much of human behavior is dependent on the assumption of group dynamics.” David shook his head. “I dunno, this isn’t really my area of expertise. So, what, the Arxur just…?”
I shrugged. “Arxur are Arxur. Around half of us can lay eggs. The end.” I took a sip of water, and David topped it back up from a bottle without comment. “Hatchlings are raised by whichever relatives feel like it, or else by state-sponsored boarding schools. I was raised by my father’s sister, who had a knack for training difficult children.” I idly scratched at an old scar on my left arm. “Her lessons were… useful.”
This was beginning to dredge up memories, so I reached for my oyster again. “Alright, may I continue? This isn’t going to start stirring any weird urges in me, is it?”
“Eh, probably not,” said David. “Certainly not enough to bring you around on… God, what do I look like to you? A guy who’s squishy with small teeth?”
“Hm,” I said by way of noncommittal half-agreement. There was no need to insult him about it. I popped the oyster into my mouth. I was honestly disappointed. It had a satisfying crunch to it, I supposed, but it mostly tasted like chalk. There was maybe a hint of some nice flavor in the middle, but I could hardly notice it over the taste of the shell.
David’s eyes were wide. “I… I’m sorry, I should have clarified that we don’t eat the shells.” He showed off his puny teeth. Like most humans, his fangs were millimeters away from fully vestigial. “Don’t think I could if I wanted to. The meat’s detached. You can just slide it with the juices right into your mouth. Try again?”
Only moderately deterred by my error, I picked up another oyster, held it like a small cup, and drank the creature. Alright, now we were getting somewhere! The briny taste of the sea added a natural seasoning of salt to an intensely savory morsel. It had a lovely chew to it as well, as the creature came apart in my maw. I could see why humans considered oysters delicious enough to compromise their morals over.
“Fantastic,” I said. I wanted more, but I thought I’d try the other options first. The next item was a shrimp cocktail. “Now, I see this one also has a shell?”
David nodded. “Thin and chitinous, but I still don’t recommend it.” He showed me a picture of a small insectoid creature. “We remove the heads and limbs of the shrimp before serving, but the shells are sometimes left on to be peeled at the table.”
My claws made short work of the little creature’s meager defenses, and I tossed it in my maw whole. This one seemed lightly cooked, but I didn’t mind too much. The flesh was a touch rubbery, but came apart so easily that it nearly felt stringy. It had a slight off-taste that was almost gamey, but grew on me. I dipped a second in a reddish condiment to the side. It was acrid and bitter, to the point where it overpowered the shrimp’s flavor. It was refreshing, but didn’t quite seem to match the dish by my estimate. “Cocktail sauce,” said David, making note of my facial expression. “Traditional, but not my first pick either. Try the white sauce? That’s a homemade garlic and herb aioli. Matches most crustaceans nicely.”
He wasn’t wrong. The aioli was much less tangy, and complemented the shrimp without overpowering it. The garlic and herbs added more flavor notes to harmonize around the gamey taste of the meat, and it added some much-needed fat to what was otherwise a fairly lean bit of meat. “This is better,” I agreed.
Finally, there was a dish of… “Tuna tartare,” David repeated. “It’s a raw fish, lightly seasoned, and chopped to make it easier to chew.” He flashed his teeth again. I flashed mine back. He blinked.
The small cubed pieces of fish were an incredible shade of dark red, and almost translucent in spots. It looked like red meat, or maybe gemstones. “What did you add to make it this color?” I hoped it wasn’t fruit juice.
“Oh, nothing for color,” said David. “Touch of soy sauce, little sesame oil, some spices, splash of vinegar. I’d normally add something for sweetness, but I’m gonna hold off on serving you sugar substitutes until I know what’s safe.” He pulled up a picture of a fairly large scaled fish, gutted and hanging from a hook. The inside was ruby red. “But yeah, no, tuna flesh just looks that color.”
“I’ve never heard of a fish with red meat on it before,” I said, “but after that pink one, I suppose it’s hardly the oddest thing I’ve seen today.”
David shrugged. “Eh, I’m just doing simple fare today,” he said. “Basic Earth foods. None of my usual trickery.”
I tilted my head, confused. “Trickery?”
David sighed. “I normally do a lot of, uh, molecular gastronomy. Dishes that use knowledge of chemistry to vary the flavors and textures in unexpected ways. Like, for example, one of our signature dishes is a cod filet cooked in lamb tallow. Cod is bland, and most of the lamb flavor is in the fat, so with a bit of finagling, this results in a piece of fish that tastes like lamb. You expect to taste fish, and you get the flavor of red meat instead.” David rubbed his eyes behind his odd civilian model holo-lenses. “The problem is, if you’ve never had cod before, and you’ve never had lamb before, you’d just… assume that cod tastes rich and gamey instead of bland. Trickey of this sort requires you to have preconceptions that I can undermine.” He shook his head. “Not that it really matters, since nobody’s wanted to order lamb-flavored anything since the fucking summer.”
“Why not?” I asked. “What’s changed?”
David pulled up another picture on his holopad. “Take a guess,” he said wryly.
He showed me a picture of a quadrupedal Venlil, and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at its dumb fluffy face.
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2023.05.30 17:56 Low-Audience-1977 Karma an AI poem
In the realm of Reddit's intricate domain, I find myself caught in a perpetual chain. To post on threads, karma I must attain, But to gain karma, posting is the refrain.
A conundrum, a dance, a cycle unending, Yearning to grow, but progress is pending. Each upvote coveted, a prize transcending, Yet trapped in this loop, my journey's extending.
I share my thoughts, engage in discourse, Hoping my words will find their rightful course. Through comments and insights, I chart my course, Seeking recognition, a sense of remorse.
Oh, Reddit's labyrinth, a complex maze, Navigating its paths with determined gaze. I pour my heart, my creativity ablaze, In pursuit of karma, my voice I raise.
Yet within this struggle, growth takes its hold, Unveiling layers of my story untold. Discovering resilience, brave and bold, In this Reddit world, I find my stronghold.
So I persevere, against odds I fight, With words as my armor, shining bright. In this poetic quest, I find my light, Traversing the cycles, day and night.
For in the realm of Reddit's vibrant embrace, I seek connection, a meaningful space. Through poems, comments, and karma's grace, I'll find my voice and leave a trace.
So let me post, let me contribute with might, Unlocking the threads, embracing the sight. In this poetic journey, I take flight, And share my words, my soul alight.
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2023.05.30 17:53 SchrodingersSmilodon (Spoilers Extended) A unified theory of the Others, the Long Night, the Horn of Winter, and Bloodraven, Part 4
This is the third in a series of posts, in which I present a theory on the history of the Others. You can read
part one here,
part two here, and
part three here.
My previous posts came with a disclaimer, which I'm going to copy-paste below:
In a certain sense, I am both a new and an old fan of ASOIAF. I read the books about ten years ago, enjoyed them, and then barely thought about them ever again after putting them down. Then, HotD got me interested in the series again, and I ended up going down the rabbit hole of fan theories, speculation about future books, details that I missed on my first reading, etc., which has been a lot of fun! But I’ve only read the series once, and it was ten years ago, so a lot of my memories are pretty fuzzy. Honestly, a lot of my knowledge comes from the wiki (although I have gone back and reread certain important chapters).
All of this is to say, I am not the most knowledgeable person to be coming up with fan theories, and the fact that I’m posting this at all probably indicates a certain amount of Dunning-Kruger effect. Take everything I say here with a grain of salt, and please let me know if there’s something obvious that my ignorance has caused me to miss. Other than that, let me know what you think!
But I also need to include another disclaimer:
I came up with this theory before I became aware of the idea that Bloodraven wasn't the three-eyed crow, and, as such, this theory assumes that Bloodraven is the three-eyed crow. To be honest, I'm becoming increasingly sympathetic to the idea that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, but I'm still undecided. If Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, that will poke a few holes in this theory, but I ultimately think it wouldn't be
too big of a problem. After all, the 3EC led Bran to Bloodraven, so they must share at least some goals. So, I ask that you assume for the purposes of this post that Bloodraven is the 3EC, with the understanding that, if it turns out that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC, this theory will need some minor amending. I've already been thinking about theories on that topic, so, if and when I finish such a theory, I'll post it and discuss how it modifies this theory. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now…
Part 4: Bloodraven
Making First Men horny
One of the most powerful pieces of magic we're told of in ASOIAF is the Hammer of the Waters. This is a spell that causes powerful earthquakes, capable of radically reshaping the geography where it's used. The Children of the Forest are said to have used the Hammer of the Waters on at least two occasions: once to flood the Neck, and once to break the Arm of Dorne. I argued in my previous post that the Horn of Winter contains the same magic as the Hammer of the Waters, and that when Joramun blew the Horn of Winter the resulting earthquake destroyed the western section of the Wall and created the Gorge. However, while the Horn of Winter replicates the magic of the Hammer of the Waters, that doesn't mean the Horn of Winter was the original Hammer of the Waters; that is to say, I don't think that the Horn of Winter was used to flood the Neck or break the Arm of Dorne. There are a few reasons why the Horn probably wasn't responsible for these historical events:
- The Horn of Winter is probably the same horn that's currently in Sam's possession (link to a series of posts that analyzes the Horn of Winter and lays out this argument), and that horn is banded in bronze. The CotF didn't work with bronze.
- TWOIAF described how the CotF brought about the Hammer of the Waters, and it had nothing to do with sounding a horn. Supposedly, it was your standard blood sacrifice deal: kill a bunch of people, and in exchange a powerful magical effect will occur. While the Horn of Winter might kill the person who blew it (in the same way Dragonbinder does), we have no reason to believe it requires a mass sacrifice.
- Creating the Gorge, while no mean feat, is much less impressive than breaking the Arm of Dorne or flooding the Neck. The Horn of Winter appears to be a weaker version of the Hammer of the Waters.
So it looks like, compared to the original Hammer of the Waters, the Horn of Winter represents a tradeoff of power for convenience: the resulting earthquake isn't as strong, but you can create an earthquake without performing a massive blood sacrifice. But I want to focus on the fact that the Horn of Winter is banded in bronze. The CotF don't use bronze, but you know who do? The First Men.
The Horn of Winter contains the magic of the CotF, but its physical structure could only have been made by the First Men. This suggests that the First Men (or some faction thereof) and the CotF (or some faction thereof) collaborated to create the Horn of Winter. I suspect that that First Men faction was none other than the Stark Kings of Winter; this would explain why it's called the Horn of Winter in the first place. Regardless of which group of First Men was responsible, however, it's easy to see why they did it: the Horn of Winter is a powerful weapon, and any faction of First Men would have been happy to have such a weapon in their possession. So the interesting question isn't, "Why did the First Men work with the CotF to create the Horn of Winter?" The interesting question is, "Why did the
CotF work with the First Men to create the Horn of Winter?" Why would the CotF give the First Men a weapon capable of destroying the Wall?
Let's take a step back and recall the role that the CotF played in the events leading up to the construction of the Wall. Their lands were invaded by the First Men, and I argued in my first post that they responded by creating the Others as a race of slave soldiers to fight the First Men. After the Pact ended the war between the CotF and the First Men, the CotF kept the Others enslaved and/or hunted down the free ones in the Lands of Always Winter. Then the Long Night came, and I argued in my second post that the Others took advantage of it by attacking the First Men, killing them en masse in order to grow their power, with the ultimate goal of attacking the CotF. Eventually, the CotF participated in the peace agreement that ended the Long Night. But it's worth remembering that the CotF only interceded in the conflict between humans and Others at the urging of the Last Hero:
"Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost." (AGOT, Bran IV)
Prior to the Last Hero, the CotF seem to have been content to sit back and watch the humans and the Others kill each other—which, considering the history of those three species, is understandable. (According to Sam, the CotF did at one point give obsidian daggers to the Night's Watch, so the CotF did get involved in the conflict between the humans and the Others eventually, but this probably didn't happen until after the Last Hero made contact with them. Old Nan says that the Last Hero had to go on a quest of some difficulty to make contact with the CotF; presumably, this wouldn't have been necessary if the CotF were already giving obsidian daggers to the Night's Watch, because then the Last Hero could have just gone to the Night's Watch and gotten in contact with the CotF that way. So, for most if not all of the Long Night, the CotF did not provide humans with obsidian weapons, meaning that they truly were uninvolved in the conflict between the two species.) I argued in my second post that the peace agreement between the First Men and the Others was an essential part of ending the Long Night, and that this was facilitated by the Last Hero/Azor Ahai.
The CotF's absence in the conflict between the humans and the Others prior to the Last Hero's involvement suggests that the CotF had no desire to see the humans and the Others make peace. They only facilitated a peace agreement because it was necessary in order to end the Long Night. The Long Night was an existential threat to the CotF, both because the forests can't survive in an eternal night and because the Others might eventually become powerful enough to threaten the CotF. So the CotF needed to end the Long Night, and ending the Long Night necessitated a peace agreement between humans and Others. It's very easy to imagine that the Last Hero's pitch to the CotF went something like, "Look, I know there's no love lost between you and humanity, and certainly none between you and the Others. But the Long Night isn't going to end unless all three species work together, and the Long Night
will kill you guys, just as it will kill humanity. For your own sake, work with us to end this." Clearly, this argument was persuasive. But, once the Long Night ended, the CotF no longer had any reason to care about peace between the humans and the Others—a peace that only existed thanks to the Wall, which was partially destroyed by the Horn of Winter, which the CotF helped to create. The logical conclusion is that
the CotF made the Horn of Winter in order to destroy the Wall and renew the war between the humans and the Others. The CotF weren't unconcerned observers to the human-Other war; they actively wanted the two species to fight.
You may be wondering, why didn't the CotF just destroy the Wall using the Hammer of the Waters? The problem with doing that is that the Hammer of the Waters is distinctly CotF magic, so destroying the Wall with the Hammer of the Waters would have pointed right back to the CotF. The humans and the Others would have known that the CotF were trying to provoke them back into war, and they would have naturally resisted those efforts. The way around this is to give humans access to the same magic as the Hammer of the Waters. That way, when the humans use that magic near the Wall, it will be the humans who are responsible for destroying the Wall. Helping the First Men create the Horn of Winter was therefore a way for the CotF to end the peace between humanity and the Others, all while maintaining plausible deniability. And it kind of worked; the Horn of Winter did destroy the western part of the Wall. But this didn't result in the human-Other war that the CotF wanted, because, as I argued in my previous post, the Others' queen was taken captive at the same time as the destruction of the Wall, and she's been used as a hostage to keep the peace ever since.
Child psychology
I've argued that the CotF wanted the humans and Others to fight, but I haven't explained why they'd want that. The easy answer is that the CotF have grievances with both the humans and the Others, so they wanted bloodshed between the two. But we shouldn't accept that easy answer too readily. If we're going to understand what the CotF want, we're going to have to get inside their heads. The books tell us about at least one way in which CotF psychology differs from human psychology:
"That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."
She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill. (ADWD, Bran III)
So we're told that vengeance and spite aren't really a thing for the CotF, or at least not in the way that they are for humans. I've heard some people suggest that Leaf might be lying here, and that the CotF actually do want vengeance, but I don't think so, for a couple of reasons. First, and this is purely personal preference, I think it's a lot more interesting if the CotF don't think in the same way that humans do. If you're going to have multiple sentient species in your story, and they all think and behave in the same way, then it kind of defeats the purpose of having multiple species in the first place, doesn't it? If the CotF think and act just like humans do, I would personally find that boring. Secondly, and more importantly, we know that the CotF employ at least one human, Bloodraven, as a greenseer. This is a position of importance and confidence in CotF society, and it gives Bloodraven access to immense information. If the CotF were really planning on taking vengeance on humanity, then it's unlikely that they would be able to hide that information from Bloodraven (and any other human greenseers the CotF had; we don't know if Bloodraven was the only one), and it's unlikely that Bloodraven would help the CotF destroy or harm his own species. So the fact that the CotF rely on Bloodraven (and possibly other human greenseers in the past) suggests that the CotF genuinely don't wish any ill will on humanity, just as Leaf said. And if the CotF don't wish any ill will on humanity today, then they also probably didn't wish any ill will on humanity at the time they made the Horn of Winter—that was back when humans still held to the Pact, so the CotF would have had fewer grievances back then than they do today. So, if the CotF wanted to cause a war between the humans and the Others, and their goal wasn't to cause any long-term harm to humanity as a species, then their intent must have been to harm, weaken, or exterminate the Others.
The CotF wanted the humans and the Others to go back to war, and they wanted humans to win. This explains why the CotF used to gift obsidian daggers to the Night's Watch.
This raises the question, if the CotF wanted humans to defeat the Others, why didn't they help the humans during the Long Night (at least, prior to the Last Hero's involvement)? Well, once again, we need to consider the psychology of the CotF. We know the CotF are willing to fight incredibly bloody wars, as they did against the First Men, but we also know that they won't keep fighting in a hopeless circumstance simply to spite their enemy, in the way that humans will. In situations where they are faced with assured destruction, they react with sad acceptance, not defiance. The fact that the CotF didn't initially participate in the war against the Others during the Long Night indicates that they must have viewed that war as hopeless. The Others were sweeping south, massacring humans, converting their boys into more Others and raising the rest as wights, constantly growing stronger; the CotF must have concluded that there was nothing they could do, no way to survive the Long Night. They didn't just roll over and die, but they weren't about to fight the Others when they had no chance of success. The CotF most likely hid, guarding themselves with magic, waiting to die a slow death—just like they're doing today.
Fortunately for the CotF, the Long Night did not end in their extinction. As I argued in my second post, Azor Ahai negotiated a peace treaty that ended the Long Night. But, as part of that peace treaty, the Others received a queen, the first female member of their species (whom I've been referring to as the Night's Queen). This allowed the Others to reproduce sexually, as opposed to their earlier method of kidnapping human children, and as a result the Others' population would have begun increasing dramatically following the Long Night. So, on the one hand, the Others were no longer benefitting from the Long Night, meaning they were more vulnerable than they had been prior to the peace treaty. But, at the same time, the Others were growing more powerful, as their population rose.
For the first time since the Long Night began, the CotF could now hope for victory in a war with them and the humans on one side and the Others on the other side, but they had a very narrow window in which to act, before the Others became too powerful. That's why they only began making moves against the Others after the Long Night; during the Long Night the Others were too strong to be realistically opposed, and before the Long Night the Others weren't seen as a significant threat. Once the Long Night ended, however, the CotF got to work, by helping to make the Horn of Winter and by providing the Night's Watch with obsidian.
Things change
The above description probably makes it seem like the CotF were motivated to provoke a new war against the Others out of self-preservation, and there may well be some truth in that. The Others, with their new queen, were a rising power, and they still probably harbored a vendetta against the CotF. If the new war against the Others resulted in the Others' extinction, that would obviously guarantee the CotF's safety from them; if the war resulted in the Night's Queen being killed or captured (which I argued is what happened), that would remove the Others' status as a rising power. So, if the CotF were acting out of self-preservation, their plan seems to have been both well motivated and reasonably successful.
But, while the CotF might have successfully averted the risk posed by the Others, they failed to do the same with the humans. Leaf, and presumably the other CotF, fully recognize that humanity's expansion is going to drive them extinct. This has massive implications for the CotF's goals and motivations.
The fact that the CotF are aware of and resigned to their inevitable extinction means that self-preservation is no longer a concern for them. They might have been motivated by self-preservation following the end of the Long Night, but not anymore. Whatever the CotF are doing nowadays, they're doing it because there's something they want to accomplish before they vanish as a species. And I do think that the CotF are trying to accomplish something, partly because characters that don't want anything are boring, and partly because Bloodraven is clearly up to something, and the CotF are supporting him. So, if they're not motivated by self-preservation, what
are the CotF trying to do?
A common idea I've heard is that Bloodraven and the CotF want to prevent the Others from destroying the world in a second Long Night. I think there's an element of truth to this (especially considering the lengths the CotF have already gone to to oppose the Others), but I don't think it's the whole story. Consider this: if the CotF want to prevent the Others from conquering Westeros, but they're not motivated by self-preservation, then they must be motivated by some combination of altruism and guilt. They created the Others, then the Others got out of hand, to the point where they threatened all of Westeros, and now the CotF feel responsible for making sure they don't do that again. That's reasonable, even noble, but it can't be limited to merely defeating the Others in this latest confrontation. If all that comes of this current conflict with the Others is that the Others are prevented from conquering Westeros, then who's to say that the Others won't try to conquer Westeros a third time in another 8,000 years? And by the time that happens, the CotF will be extinct, so they won't be around to help with that conflict. Simply defeating the Others and thwarting their plans would be a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and, with the CotF facing their own extinction, they would see now as a time for permanent solutions. And when the problem in question is the existence of the Others, there can be only one solution:
The CotF want to wipe out the Others completely. I suspect they wanted this ever since the Long Night; they probably see it as cleaning up after their mess. Now, with their extinction looming, that plan to genocide the Others has been made a priority.
I know that my logic has involved jumping around in time a lot, so, as a summary, let me present this handy timeline of the CotF's thoughts on the Others:
- During the war between the CotF and the First Men: "We need the Others to win this war."
- After the Pact was forged: Either "We may not be at war anymore, but we need to keep the Others as our slave soldiers, just in case the humans break the Pact," or "We don't need the Others anymore now that we have the Pact. I'm sure the handful of free Others in the Lands of Always Winter won't be a problem."
- During the Long Night: "The Others are going to drive both us and the First Men to extinction, but there's nothing we can do about it. This sucks."
- After the Long Night: "The Others are vulnerable, but they won't be for long. They're a danger to both us and the humans, and they're our fault. We need to act fast to destroy them, while we still can. That means we need to get the humans and the Others to start fighting again, and then we can help the humans win that war."
- After the Night's Queen was taken prisoner: "This isn't ideal, but the Others are no longer a rising power without their queen, so we can leave well enough alone."
- After it became clear that the CotF were going extinct: "The Others are unable to act against the humans for now, but there's no guarantee that that will last, and we won't be around to oppose the Others forever. We need to genocide the Others, while we're still around to do so."
I want to comment on an interesting theme here. You may notice a certain paternalism in the CotF's attitudes toward humans. This has already demonstrated in the books:
"Two hundred years?" said Meera.
The child smiled. “Men, they are the children.” (ADWD, Bran II)
It has often been observed that the Others, as an existential threat that can only be dealt with if humanity puts away its petty political squabbles, serve as a metaphor for climate change. In this metaphor, the CotF are the older generations that caused climate change in the first place and now are dying off for unrelated reasons. The CotF's behavior can then be seen as an aspirational model for how older generations should behave with regards climate change. Rather than saying, "Fuck it, I'll be dead, so it's not my problem," they ought to say, "I'm partly responsible for this, so I need to fix it, and the fact that I won't be around that much longer only means I need to work harder to fix it while I still can." Sadly, the CotF only behave the way they do because of their inhuman psychology, which points to the fact that it was never realistic to hope that older generations would behave this way in real life. I doubt this theme is intentional;
Martin seems to have originally not seen the Others as a climate change metaphor, although he's since come around to the idea. Still, I think it's a neat connection.
It was Bloodraven all along
If the CotF really want to wipe out the Others, then the current situation at Winterfell must seem perfect for them. I argued in my last post that the events of the series have left Winterfell vulnerable, and the Others are now planning a rescue mission to extract their queen from the Winterfell crypts. With their queen no longer held captive, there will be nothing preventing war between humans and Others (and, after the humans kept the Night's Queen imprisoned for thousands of years, the Others will definitely have cause for war), and this war will happen while the CotF are still around to support the humans. Better still, humanity has dragons again, which will surely be useful against the Others. Everything seems to be going swimmingly for the CotF's plan to provoke a war of extermination against the Others, which raises an obvious question: did the CotF cause the current situation?
To grossly oversimplify a complex series of events, Winterfell's vulnerability can be traced back to two events:
- Ned going to King's Landing, and subsequently getting beheaded. This caused all of the Starks except for Bran and Rickon to leave Winterfell, and it caused the Northern army to march south, leaving Winterfell vulnerable to…
- Theon capturing Winterfell, and subsequently losing it to Ramsay. This physically damaged Winterfell, it caused Bran and Rickon to leave, and it meant that Winterfell was now under Bolton control, which put it at the center of both Stannis's war and the various Northern intrigues.
As it happens, there's evidence that Bloodraven played a part in both of these events. First, Bloodraven was probably responsible for sending the direwolves to the Stark children (
link to a series of posts by
JoeMagician that lays out this argument, among other claims), and these direwolves shaped the events that led to Ned's beheading. Summer killed Bran's assassin before he could murder Bran, but also before he could be interrogated by the Starks; as a result, Catelyn acquired the Valyrian steel dagger, but she didn't know who sent the assassin. Littlefinger took advantage of this to manipulate the Starks. Meanwhile, the Nymeria/Lady incident deepened tensions between the Starks and the Lannisters. I'm not saying that the direwolves exist
solely for the purpose of getting Ned's beheaded, but they did contribute to his beheading, by providing Littlefinger with a means of manipulating the Starks and by further souring relations between Ned and Cersei.
More significantly, Bloodraven removed Bran's memory of Jaime pushing him from the tower:
Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? He tried to remember. A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shining with light, golden. "The things I do for love," it said.
Bran screamed.
The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it shrieked at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away. It landed on Bran’s shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shining golden face was gone. (AGOT, Bran III)
If Bran had kept that memory, then he presumably would have woken up and told someone, "Jaime Lannister pushed me out of the tower, after I saw him wrestling naked with Queen Cersei." How exactly this would have changed the events of the book is a matter of fanfic, but, with eye-witness evidence of Jaime and Cersei committing incest and attempted murder, it's very easy to see things going poorly for the Lannisters. Even Cersei recognized how difficult of a situation that would have been to navigate:
If truth be told, Jaime had come to rue heaving Brandon Stark out that window. Cersei had given him no end of grief afterward, when the boy refused to die. "He was seven, Jaime," she’d berated him. "Even if he understood what he saw, we should have been able to frighten him into silence."
"I didn’t think you’d want—"
"You never think. If the boy should wake and tell his father what he saw—"
"If if if." He had pulled her into his lap. “If he wakes we’ll say he was dreaming, we’ll call him a liar, and should worse come to worst I’ll kill Ned Stark."
"And then what do you imagine Robert will do?" (ASOS, Jaime I)
Had Bran kept his memory of Jaime pushing him out of the window, then it likely would have been Cersei and Jaime's downfall, and that means Ned wouldn't have lost his head.
Later, when Theon takes Winterfell, he wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, and he gets the feeling that
someone was responsible for waking him:
One moment he was asleep; the next, awake.
Kyra nestled against him, one arm draped lightly over his, her breasts brushing his back. He could hear her breathing, soft and steady. The sheet was tangled about them. It was the black of night. The bedchamber was dark and still.
What is it? Did I hear something? Someone?
Wind sighed faintly against the shutters. Somewhere, far off, he heard the yowl of a cat in heat. Nothing else. Sleep, Greyjoy, he told himself. The castle is quiet, and you have guards posted. At your door, at the gates, on the armory.
He might have put it down to a bad dream, but he did not remember dreaming. (ACOK, Theon IV)
This was the chapter where Bran and company "escape," and Theon's primary emotions throughout the chapter are anxiety and desperation. Those feelings build over the course of the day, as Theon tries and fails to find Bran and Rickon, eventually consuming him to the point where he does something stupid.
"Joseth has the right of it," said Maester Luwin. "Groping through the woods by torchlight will avail us nothing."
Theon could taste bile at the back of his throat, and his stomach was a nest of snakes twining and snapping at each other. If he crept back to Winterfell empty-handed, he might as well dress in motley henceforth and wear a pointed hat; the whole north would know him for a fool. And when my father hears, and Asha …
"M’lord prince." Reek urged his horse near. (ACOK, Theon IV)
Theon woke up in the middle of the night with a sense that something was off, and then he had plenty of time to stew in his anxiety. Were it not for that, he might not have descended to the point where killing the miller's boys seemed like a good idea. Therefore, the hint that someone was responsible for waking him up is interesting; maybe Bloodraven used his psychic tree powers to wake Theon? The passage mentions the "sigh" of wind—a notably anthropomorphic phrasing—and we know that, when Bran tried to communicate with Ned in the past, it sounded like wind to him; maybe Bloodraven can do something similar, sans time travel? There's nothing explicitly pointing to Bloodraven, but there is evidence that he's messing with Theon's emotions in his next chapter:
The sky was a gloom of cloud, the woods dead and frozen. Roots grabbed at Theon’s feet as he ran, and bare branches lashed his face, leaving thin stripes of blood across his cheeks. He crashed through heedless, breathless, icicles flying to pieces before him. Mercy, he sobbed. From behind came a shuddering howl that curdled his blood. Mercy, mercy. When he glanced back over his shoulder he saw them coming, great wolves the size of horses with the heads of small children. Oh, mercy, mercy. Blood dripped from their mouths black as pitch, burning holes in the snow where it fell. Every stride brought them closer. Theon tried to run faster, but his legs would not obey. The trees all had faces, and they were laughing at him, laughing, and the howl came again. He could smell the hot breath of the beasts behind him, a stink of brimstone and corruption. They’re dead, dead, I saw them killed, he tried to shout, I saw their heads dipped in tar, but when he opened his mouth only a moan emerged, and then something touched him and he whirled, shouting … (ACOK, Theon V)
Theon feels guilty for faking Bran and Rickon's death, and he's afraid for his future; that guilt and fear would have existed in him no matter what, but these dreams amplify those feelings, and the presence of weirwood trees suggests that Bloodraven is actively sending them to Theon. After all, none of Theon's experiences have involved a weirwood in any significant capacity, so this wasn't a native element of his dream, and Bran often has dreams about a weirwood that are implied to be sent by Bloodraven. Theon's fear and his attempts to rationalize his guilt drive him to cling desperately to his power and authority:
"Your prize will be the doom of you. Krakens rise from the sea, Theon, or did you forget that during your years among the wolves? Our strength is in our longships. My wooden pisspot sits close enough to the sea for supplies and fresh men to reach me whenever they are needful. But Winterfell is hundreds of leagues inland, ringed by woods, hills, and hostile holdfasts and castles. And every man in a thousand leagues is your enemy now, make no mistake. You made certain of that when you mounted those heads on your gatehouse." Asha shook her head. "How could you be such a bloody fool? Children …"
"They defied me!" he shouted in her face. "And it was blood for blood besides, two sons of Eddard Stark to pay for Rodrik and Maron." The words tumbled out heedlessly, but Theon knew at once that his father would approve. "I’ve laid my brothers’ ghosts to rest." (ACOK, Theon V)
All of this causes Theon to reject Asha's offer to leave Winterfell for Deepwood Motte, which results in Ramsay sacking Winterfell. So, to summarize, Bloodraven provided the Lannisters with advantages so that they would triumph in their intrigues against Ned, and he psychologically manipulated Theon so that he would lose Winterfell to Ramsay.
Bloodraven has actively worked to create the circumstances that have left Winterfell vulnerable, so that the Others will be able to rescue their queen and begin a new war against the humans. I don't want to fall into the trap of claiming that Bloodraven was responsible for everything; I think that most events in the story happened without his direct interference. But, thanks to his greensight giving him glimpses of the future, Bloodraven has found a few places where just a small nudge can result in things going the way he wants them to.
Of course, putting Winterfell in a vulnerable position only matters if the Others know about that vulnerability.
Bloodraven must have some communication with the Others. I'm not sure what this communication looks like; if the Others can dream, then it might just mean sending them green dreams prophesying Winterfell's coming vulnerability. Alternatively, Bloodraven might be communicating with them directly by skinchanging into a raven. Maybe he's posing as a human traitor, willing to sell out the humans and the CotF, a kind of second Night's King? This is definitely the biggest missing piece in my theory, but I don't think it's too outlandish to posit Bloodraven has
some means of getting information to the Others, and that he's thereby clued the Others in on Winterfell's coming vulnerability.
A politically useful apocalypse
I've talked a lot about the CotF's motivations, but not at all about Bloodraven's, so let's do that now. I'd recommend you read
this excellent series of posts on Bloodraven, which I'll be drawing from heavily. Prior to becoming the Last Greenseer, Bloodraven was primarily occupied with the Blackfyres. He played a crucial role in ending the First Blackfyre Rebellion, including but not limited to killing Daemon Blackfyre and his eldest two sons, and since then he went to every effort to foil future Blackfyre attempts to claim the Iron Throne. Some people have speculated that Bloodraven did so out of duty and a desire to keep the realm stable, but this doesn't hold up. Following Maekar I's death, a Great Council was held to determine the succession, and Bloodraven invited and then immediately killed Aenys Blackfyre. Bloodraven later claimed that this was for the good of the realm, but… how? If the Great Council had selected Aenys as the next king, the crown would have passed to him just as peacefully and rightfully as it ended up passing to Aegon V. If Bloodraven was truly motivated by duty and a desire for peace, he would have had no reason to kill Aenys. The only explanation for Bloodraven's actions is that he genuinely did not want a Blackfyre to take the throne, no matter the circumstances surrounding their accession. In fact, his anti-Blackfyre obsession was so intense that he ignored the devastation caused by Dagon Greyjoy, because addressing it would leave the throne vulnerable to the Blackfyres:
"Myself, I blame Bloodraven," Ser Kyle went on. "He is the King's Hand, yet he does nothing, whilst the krakens spread flame and terror up and down the sunset sea."
Ser Maynard gave a shrug. "His eye is fixed on Tyrosh, where Bittersteel sits in exile, plotting with the sons of Daemon Blackfyre. So he keeps the king's ships close at hand, lest they attempt to cross." (The Mystery Knight)
It's important to note that Maynard Plumm was probably a glamored Bloodraven, so this isn't mere speculation; this is Bloodraven telling us his motivation. By all accounts, Bloodraven's tenure as Hand was an awful time for Westeros, where law and order broke down and few people respected the king. The point is, Bloodraven was not a noble man fighting against a beloved brother because it was the right thing to do.
Bloodraven was a Targaryen uber-loyalist, who would gladly see the realm burn, so long as a Targaryen remained on the throne. And he appears to have retained that loyalty, decades later. Bloodraven is likely in control of Mormont's raven (see the series of posts I linked earlier), and in raven form Bloodraven hints fairly clearly about wanting Jon to be king:
"Aemon knew, and rightly, that if he remained at court those who disliked his brother’s rule would seek to use him, so he came to the Wall. And here he has remained, while his brother and his brother’s son and his son each reigned and died in turn, until Jaime Lannister put an end to the line of the Dragonkings."
"King," croaked the raven. The bird appeared across the solar to land on Mormont’s shoulder. "King," it said again, strutting back and forth. (ACOK, Jon I)
Something similar happens in ADWD, but what's interesting about this instance of the raven calling Jon king is that it happens immediately after Mormont claims that the Targaryen line has ended. This suggests that this is more than just a prophetic statement of fact; this is a profession of loyalty.
Jon is the rightful Targaryen king, and he has Bloodraven's support. Given his undying Targaryen loyalty, Bloodraven must be psyched about the coming war between the humans and the Others. Daenerys is coming with three dragons, which will be humanity's best hope for defeating the Others; Westeros will naturally rally behind Daenerys, solidifying her rule. Moreover, dragons will be seen as the saviors of Westeros, rather than as dangerous weapons. If Marwyn was right that the maesters killed the dragons, then this would prevent a similar conspiracy from arising and driving the dragons back into extinction, since the dragons would now be seen as necessary for Westeros's security against the forces of evil. So while Bloodraven wants to provoke a war between humans and Others, just like the CotF do, he wants this for a different reason than they do;
Bloodraven wants to use the Others to bring about a lasting Targaryen restoration. Continued in comments
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2023.05.30 17:11 AdventureMaterials The Third Son - Pt 2 - A D&D-Themed Ironsworn Actual Play
This is part two of my Ironsworn campaign experiment meant to emulator an “Old School” D&D like experience–a party of vulnerable allies, location-based adventures, and strange monsters lurking just on the outskirts of human civilization.
In the last episode, the party gained a quest to figure out why the fishing has dried up for the town of Longhill, and they have followed what clues they could find into the woods east of town.
The Party: Sir Gethin Oyvind E-1 H-2 I-3 S-1 W-2 Health: 5, Spirit: 5, Supply: 5, Momentum: 8/2. Assets: Commander (strength 4), Ironclad (light armor), Empowered (Knight Errant). Equipment: chain armor, sword, shield, crossbow, horse Vows: Become worthy of the Oyvind family name (epic): 0.0, bring back the fishing (dangerous): 2.0 Bonds: - Baggi the Carpenter.
- Frej the Mercenary.
- Tessa the Wheel-maker.
Because this is a D&D style game, my PC won’t be solo, but the rest of the characters will not be represented by Ironsworn PCs. Instead, they are represented by the party contained within the “Commander” perk. As it stands, they are: - Sola the Cruel (fighter). Workcrew overseer.
- Inguna the Naive (fightescout). A trapper.
- Bjarn the Jealous (fighter). A falconer.
- Somhaile the Tactless (thief/scout). A thief.
#
Cautious after their near-encounter with the strange crab-mosquito, the party moves forward with as much stealth as five people, a horse, and a donkey can muster.
Delve the Depths (Shadow): [Delve the Depths: Mark progress.]. [Mark Progress: Haunted Forest :9 boxes]. What do they find? Clearing (complex/refuge). They eventually find a game trail and make faster progress. It winds through the wood until emerging in a large clearing that holds a walled camp. The walls are made of ~8 foot high poles and enclose an area about 80 feet across. A light gate stands open on one side.
Because I had no encounter, I’m going to rule that this is unoccupied. Since my supply is full, I won’t need to resupply but I may make camp. Gethin sends Somhaile and Inguna in to investigate. They creep up to the walls, peer carefully around the open gate, and eventually disappear inside. A few moments later, they come back out waving and reporting that the camp appears to have been abandoned.
Are there supplies inside still (50%)? No, and… The interior is entirely bare. Few signs of the prior occupants remain. Still, it’s a defensible spot and Gethin orders the party to set up camp for the night.
Make Camp: [Strong Hit: 4 + 5 + 0 = 9 vs 7 1]. +1m (now 9) and +1 next move. The night passes easily, and the party sleeps well knowing that they have walls around them. Even the watches are uneventful. They rise early and break camp just after sunup.
[Progress Roll: Haunted Forest :Strong Hit = 9 vs 7 7]. +1 to next move (now +2). [Mark Progress: Bring back the fishing :4 boxes] The road passes beyond the forest and emerges onto the shore of a small lake.
Is the smell of death worse here (75%)? Yes, but… The smell of death worsens as they leave the woods, but they still cannot see any sign of what may be causing it. There are no fish decomposing on the lake’s shoreline, and they see nothing floating atop the water. Still, they are confident that they are growing closer to their goal.
With nowhere to go but further upriver, Gethin dispatches the two scouts to see what they can find.
Gather Information: [Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 2 = 9 vs 9 2]. +1m (now 1). What do they find? Blighted/Thicket. It is very late before they come back. When they do, they look wary of what they have to report. A thicket ahead, near the great eastern forest–but the trees there are dead, and not by fire. The grass, too, is yellowed and crunches underfoot. They dared not go further by themselves, for they heard strange sounds within.
That sounds promisingly sinister, so they head toward it, although they make camp when they are still a fair ways off, and they take care to keep their watches carefully.
Because we have already traveled through a dungeon and scored a hit on our gather info, I’m going to rule that this is probably the thing we seek. To figure out what kind of dungeon it is, I’m going to roll from three options and I’ll randomly assign a theme: - Barrow
- Cavern
- Sea Cavern (river, in this case)
Result: Corrupted Cavern. Good theme result! I’m going to make this one formidable, because I think this should spell the end of my quest once we complete it. I haven’t finished a full, formidable dungeon yet, so we’ll see how it goes. Formidable means that there should be ~10 locations in the dungeon before I can be confident that I have cleared it. The next day they rise, but they take their time approaching the thicket. Even from far off they can feel a sense of
wrongness about it. Even so, glory (and hopefully payment!) lay on the other side, so they push forward.
Discover a Site: Corrupted Cavern (Formidable). They enter the thicket, fighting the horse and donkey all the way. Inguna finds a hint of a trail in the dead grass and leads them up a gentle rise to a low hillock. Just to the north lies the river; it would have been hidden behind a canopy in better days, but the bare tree limbs hide little. The circle of death extends equidistantly in all directions; even a few trees on the far side of the river are chalky gray instead of brown.
At the peak of the hillock stands a low wall of pale gray stone that is all that remains of the foundation of some building now long gone.
A dark pit, ringed by a strange red moss, gapes open in the earth like a sucking wound. A faint wet sound can be heard from within. “Underwater river,” Bjarn posits. All the rest pretend to believe him as they stake the animals and prepare to descend into the earth.
What do they find within? Something Unusual – Fortified/Hideaway. The pit descends as a narrow chute through almost twenty feet of earth until it emerges into a cavern of unworked stone. Gethin lifts his torch and paces the chamber while the rest of the party follows him down. By the time the last of them arrive, he has mapped the room. It is featureless and without exits except for a single door of iron set into the northern wall.
“This strange curse is no work of nature, red in tooth and claw,” Gethin observes. “Some man had a hand in this. And that man might still be here. Be ready.” The party draws their weapons.
[Delve the Depths (Wits): Mark progress and Reveal a Danger.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :1 boxes] Feature: Subterranean Waterway (Treacherous/Exit) Danger: Lose way or are delayed The door opens with a rusty groan, revealing a claustrophobic tunnel that sinks deeper into the stone. Gethin leads with his shield high as the others follow behind with torches and weapons. The fires cast long shadows that move strangely against the warped walls.
The faint water sounds become louder as they progress. Eventually, their tunnel opens into a large cavern that is split in half by a wide and swift river. The water is roaring here, for at the far end of the cavern the water gathers and throws up spray as it drains in a violent whirlpool.
“Where do you think it goes?” Inguna asks. None of them want to find out.
Unfortunately, there is no bridge and the span is too far to jump. They cast lots for who will have to swim across, and it falls on
[d5=] Inguna. “Guess you’ll get the chance to find out,” Somhaile jokes. Inguna doesn’t laugh as they tie a rope around his waist.
Face Danger (iron) to swim across: [Strong Hit: 5 + 3 + 0 = 8 vs 3 2]. +1m but I’m already at 10 (I should burn it!). He swims across but is swept quite a ways down stream before he reaches the far bank. They throw him a torch and wait as he secures the rope to a stone outcropping on his side. The rest of the party passes by safely, though they are cold and shivering when they emerge and begin to dress again.
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :2 boxes] Feature: Cramped Caves (Secret/Entry) The tunnel beyond the river leads to a series of cramped chambers. In one, a faint breeze stirs the air. They investigate and eventually find a chimney that might lead up into the world above, although the climb upward would be nearly impossible.
[Delve the Depths: Choose one: Mark progress or Find an Opportunity.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :3 boxes] Feature: Twisting Passages (Unstable/Valuables) Eventually, they progress out of the caves and into a maze of twisting passages. Time seems to stall as they track and backtrack their way through the tunnels. All grow weary and–truth be told–frightened when they realize that they have been underground for far longer than they had expected, and that the way out may not be trivial.
It is Somhaile who spots them first, with her keen thief’s eyes–a smattering of reflective discs down a side corridor. They investigate and realize that they are silver coins, shining in the torchlight. Someone has definitely been here. Somhaile pockets the coins as they pass, though the others want to leave them behind to track their return. “Leave your own silver, then,” she retorts.
Inguna drops a few coppers before he realizes that no one else is doing so. Feeling foolish, he stops.
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress and Reveal a Danger.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :4 boxes] [Reveal a Danger: Denizen controls dark magic] Feature: Vast Chamber (Fortified/Boundary) The passage emerges into another chamber, on that stretches out so far in all directions that their torchlight is swallowed by the darkness.
Face Danger (Wits) to detect the foe: [Miss: 3 + 2 + 0 = 5 vs 7 8]. Unwilling to become lost in the darkness, they decide to hug the walls and circle the cavern in a counterclockwise direction. Eventually, the come around again to the tunnel where they started. With nothing left to do, they leave the safety of the wall behind and step out into the great open chamber. Soon the wall is lost behind them. Their torchlight flickers feebly in the darkness, revealing a dim circle of dun beige stone floor and nothing but void beyond.
Eventually, something materializes out of the darkness–a squat, perfectly square structure of worked stone, possibly twenty paces to a side and 10′ high.
[Description: Assault/Desolation] Scenes of battle and destruction appear to be engraved upon its surface, but even in the still air underground the ancient carvings have been worn smooth by countless aeons.
In one wall stands a door. With no where else to go, they open it.
Here’s where the Face Danger miss comes into play. Let’s decide what kind of monster we’re facing. Monstrosity: giant-sized – fish (I’m going to interpret as eel) – spikes/spines – keen senses A robed figure stands within, hunched over a darkly stained altar. As the party enters, the figure turns and begins to howl. Foul green mist pours of its open mouth, billowing across the narrow room toward the party. None want to test it, so they fall back into the large chamber, slamming the door behind them.
Just then, a whistling sound fills the air. They look up just in time to see a shadow, almost iridescent in its blackness, falling from the ceiling. The thing strikes the ground just within the light of their torches. It is a silver-scaled thing with a mouth full of razor-pointed teeth; its head it huge, easily large enough to bite through a man’s torso if it can get hold of him. Suddenly it begins to move, wiggling forward like a snake with an explosive burst of speed.
Enter the Fray against Eel-Monster and Wizard (Formidable): [Weak Hit: 3 + 2 + 0 = 5 vs 6 4]. Keep initiative. Strike (I’m going to rule I can use my warband here): [Weak Hit: 1 + 4 + 0 = 5 vs 1 10]. [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :2 boxes] The band falls together into a group as the beast comes at them. Spears out, they manage to turn it aside just as it sends its snapping maw against Gethin’s shield. In a moment, it slithers out of sight around the building and disappears into the darkness.
They can hear it moving, just beyond the circle of torchlight. The band presses their backs together, peering futilely into the darkness.
Suddenly, it snaps forward out of the dark. Its body is long–they can see it now–dozens of feet long, and as thick around as a man. Heavy spines like sharpened quarterstaffs drag behind it, flaring from the sides of its body.
Clash: [Strong Hit: 5 + 4 + 0 = 9 vs 7 4] [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :5 boxes] The party scrambles aside at the last second and the beast cannot stop its momentum as it sails through their midst. They stick it several times at it passes, cutting long scores in its scaly hide.
Strike: [Weak Hit: 1 + 4 + 0 = 5 vs 3 6] [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :7 boxes] They follow it this time, gaining confidence. Several more hits land home. Suddenly, the door behind them smashes open and a whip of silver-green fire lashes out at them–the wizard has arrived.
Clash: [Weak Hit: 2 + 4 + 0 = 6 vs 10 1]. Can’t use momentum, so one of my men goes down. Who is hurt? Bjarn. [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :9 boxes] Sola, Gethin, and Inguna stay focused on the eel while Bjarn and Somhaile turn their attentions on the newly arrived wizard. The eel lashes out again, but not in time–Sola and Gethin form an effective wall while Inguna runs it through the neck with his spear. The thing writhes violently for a few moments, but it has been stuck well. It dies.
Just as the party turns, the wizard’s whip catches Bjarn across the chest. He goes down in a heap, like a puppet with the strings cut.
Clash: [Strong Hit: 5 + 3 + 0 = 8 vs 1 3] [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :10 boxes] [Progress Roll: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :Strong Hit = 10 vs 3 6] The wizard’s victory is short-lived. Somhaile manages to sneak behind the robed figure and plant her dagger in the center of its back. It collapses with a groan and lies still.
After that fight, I’m going to say we completed one of the major steps on our quest. Surely this wizard and big eel were related to Longhill’s troubles. [Mark Progress: Bring back the fishing :6 boxes] Was Bjarn killed (75%)? No! They go to Bjarn and find that he still lives, though his breathing is shallow and his eyes will not open. They need to get him rest, but none of them would be mad enough to rest in that cavern. Gethin and Somhaile investigate the building while Inguna and Sola try to prepare Bjarn to be moved.
What’s inside the building? Transform-Wound / Avenge-Time. The chamber is spartan in its decoration. The altar stands alone near one wall; near the other lies the top of a staircase that leads deeper into the earth. Gethin averts his eyes from the altar and even Somhaile turns away; neither know what poor creature contributed to the mass of tortured flesh upon the bare stone, but both are glad that they killed the robed figure outside.
This doesn’t seem like a good place to rest, so Bjarn is going to have to stay out of commission for a while. Meanwhile, I’m going to use the stairs as an opportunity to change the domain of this dungeon–instead of a Corrupted Cavern, we are now moving into a Corrupted Underkeep. Otherwise, progress remains the same. [Delve the Depths (Shadow): Choose one: Mark progress or Find an Opportunity.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :5 boxes] Feature: Hall or Chamber (Fragile/Exit) The party moves more slowly now, and with as much quiet as they can muster given Bjarn’s condition. Somhaile moves a few dozen paces ahead of the others, keeping an eye out for signs of trouble. The stairs descend into a large, worked hall. Colonnades progress up the sides of the hall and lead toward an imposing set of bronze doors, but when the party draws near they realize that the right hand doors is ajar; there is enough room to pass through without disturbing it.
[Delve the Depths: Choose one: Mark progress or Find an Opportunity.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :6 boxes] Feature: Foundry or Workshop (Foreboding/Breach) The door leads into a maze of 10′ wide corridors of worked stone. They choose a direction at random and move that way, passing several locked doors before coming at least to an open chamber. Light and heat emanate from within, but the room is empty. Inside, a forge’s embers lay dying. Strange tools of iron line the walls, devices of torture and war, twisted armor or weapons designed for bodies clearly inhuman.
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :7 boxes] Feature: Stairs into the Depths (Mystical/Threshold) Finally, they come to the end of the mazelike corridors. Another chamber stands there, and against the far end looms the maw of some devilish beast. It takes a heartbeat before they realize it is carven stone, and that within that maw stands a staircase that descends even deeper into the earth.
None of them want to follow it, but what choice do they have now?
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress and Reveal a Danger.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :8 boxes] Danger: Ancient Mechanism or Trap Feature: Carved Passages (Active/Entry) They descend further into the earth. The stairs spiral down, deeper and deeper, seemingly forever. Finally, they level out and open into a tunnel of perfectly smooth stone. They take cautious steps forward.
Face Danger (Wits) to avoid the trap: [Miss: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 8 8] That could be bad! I’ll use momentum. [Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 10 vs 8 8]. Reset to 2m. +1m (now 3). Suddenly, Somhaile reaches out and grabs Gethin’s armor and jerks him backwards off his feet. The clatters to the ground with a resounding echo. In a second he’s up, ready to berate her for making so much noise, but she puts her hand over his mouth. With a finger she points at the ground. A low wire, no thicker than a hair, runs at ankle height across the tunnel.
After a moment he removes her hand.
Thank you he mouths at her. She reaches forward and pulls the coin purse off his belt and ties it to her own. He decides that argument can wait for later.
[Delve the Depths: Take both: Mark progress and Find an Opportunity.] [Find an Opportunity: You are alerted to a potential threat.] +1 to next move and +1m on hit. [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :9 boxes] Feature: Shrine or Temple (Marked/History) Monstrosity: person-sized – beast – tentacles – crusheconstrictor The tunnel eventually leads to a small complex of carven chambers, all leading toward one center chamber. There, the ground slopes forward like an amphitheater toward a terrible shrine. That strange red mold grows everywhere here, red enough that it seems to glow with its own inner light. Water seeps in from countless tiny cracks on the walls, flowing down the pulsating mold and eventually draining through a small hole set before the altar.
A half dozen figures are here, worshipping at the altar on bended knee. The sound of their inhuman ululating covers the sounds of the party’s approach
[thanks Find an Opportunity!]. The adventurers ready their weapons and prepare to throw.
Battle: [Weak Hit: 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 vs 4 9]. Who pays the price? Sola. -1 strength to warband (now 2). The party’s ambush catches the cultists off guard and two of them are cut down immediately. The others turn, though, and the wailing becomes a scream of anger. They throw back their hoods, revealing faces that had once been human but are not mixed inseparable with that horrific red mold. Tentacles sprout from the fingers and backs as they run, spreading out from beneath dark fabric robes.
The party fights valiantly, holding the strange things off with fire and steel, and eventually the last of them lies dead. It is then that Gethin notices Sola, kneeling at the side of one of the defeated cultists. He goes to her, reaches out a hand, but that’s when he sees it–one of the cultist’s long tentacles has found a weak spot in her armor and has punched through her side.
Can he get the tentacle out without killing her? [Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 0 = 7 vs 4 10]. -1 Supply (now 4). The mold fears the fire, even in death, and he thrusts his torch into the wound on her side. She screams and tries to wrench away, but Inguna grabs her by the arms and holds her tight as Gethin thrusts the burning brand right into her flesh. She shudders, bites her own tongue until blood pours from her mouth, and falls still. He keeps the torch on her as her skin blisters and blackens.
Finally, he tosses the torch aside and digs in his pack for a small glass vial. He tips it into her mouth and holds back her head. The potion works quickly. The burnt flesh begins to pinken and scab. Her pale face flushes with color. Gethin sinks to his knees beside her.
Finally, he looks around. “I think we’ve done it,” he says.
Have they done it? Reach destination: [Progress Roll: Corrupted Underkeep :Strong Hit = 9 vs 4 7]. Success! +1m (now 4). [Mark Progress: Bring back the fishing :8 boxes] There is no where deeper to go. The put the torch to everything they can find. The mold on the walls catches and the fire races up toward the ceiling of the cave, filling the chamber with acrid smoke. The party then takes hammers to the altar and throws the shattered stones to the four corners of the chamber, so that even its foul presence will no longer infect the water seeping through the walls and down the drain.
Finally, they retrace their steps and, after many long hours, emerge once more onto the surface.
That's it for this session! And as a reminder: You can find links to every one of my solo session game reports on my Campaign Logs page on my blog. submitted by
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Solo_Roleplaying [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 17:10 AdventureMaterials The Third Son - Pt 2 - A D&D Themed Ironsworn Actual Play
This is part two of my Ironsworn campaign experiment meant to emulator an “Old School” D&D like experience–a party of vulnerable allies, location-based adventures, and strange monsters lurking just on the outskirts of human civilization.
In the last episode, the party gained a quest to figure out why the fishing has dried up for the town of Longhill, and they have followed what clues they could find into the woods east of town.
The Party: Sir Gethin Oyvind E-1 H-2 I-3 S-1 W-2 Health: 5, Spirit: 5, Supply: 5, Momentum: 8/2. Assets: Commander (strength 4), Ironclad (light armor), Empowered (Knight Errant). Equipment: chain armor, sword, shield, crossbow, horse Vows: Become worthy of the Oyvind family name (epic): 0.0, bring back the fishing (dangerous): 2.0 Bonds: - Baggi the Carpenter.
- Frej the Mercenary.
- Tessa the Wheel-maker.
Because this is a D&D style game, my PC won’t be solo, but the rest of the characters will not be represented by Ironsworn PCs. Instead, they are represented by the party contained within the “Commander” perk. As it stands, they are: - Sola the Cruel (fighter). Workcrew overseer.
- Inguna the Naive (fightescout). A trapper.
- Bjarn the Jealous (fighter). A falconer.
- Somhaile the Tactless (thief/scout). A thief.
#
Cautious after their near-encounter with the strange crab-mosquito, the party moves forward with as much stealth as five people, a horse, and a donkey can muster.
Delve the Depths (Shadow): [Delve the Depths: Mark progress.]. [Mark Progress: Haunted Forest :9 boxes]. What do they find? Clearing (complex/refuge). They eventually find a game trail and make faster progress. It winds through the wood until emerging in a large clearing that holds a walled camp. The walls are made of ~8 foot high poles and enclose an area about 80 feet across. A light gate stands open on one side.
Because I had no encounter, I’m going to rule that this is unoccupied. Since my supply is full, I won’t need to resupply but I may make camp. Gethin sends Somhaile and Inguna in to investigate. They creep up to the walls, peer carefully around the open gate, and eventually disappear inside. A few moments later, they come back out waving and reporting that the camp appears to have been abandoned.
Are there supplies inside still (50%)? No, and… The interior is entirely bare. Few signs of the prior occupants remain. Still, it’s a defensible spot and Gethin orders the party to set up camp for the night.
Make Camp: [Strong Hit: 4 + 5 + 0 = 9 vs 7 1]. +1m (now 9) and +1 next move. The night passes easily, and the party sleeps well knowing that they have walls around them. Even the watches are uneventful. They rise early and break camp just after sunup.
[Progress Roll: Haunted Forest :Strong Hit = 9 vs 7 7]. +1 to next move (now +2). [Mark Progress: Bring back the fishing :4 boxes] The road passes beyond the forest and emerges onto the shore of a small lake.
Is the smell of death worse here (75%)? Yes, but… The smell of death worsens as they leave the woods, but they still cannot see any sign of what may be causing it. There are no fish decomposing on the lake’s shoreline, and they see nothing floating atop the water. Still, they are confident that they are growing closer to their goal.
With nowhere to go but further upriver, Gethin dispatches the two scouts to see what they can find.
Gather Information: [Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 2 = 9 vs 9 2]. +1m (now 1). What do they find? Blighted/Thicket. It is very late before they come back. When they do, they look wary of what they have to report. A thicket ahead, near the great eastern forest–but the trees there are dead, and not by fire. The grass, too, is yellowed and crunches underfoot. They dared not go further by themselves, for they heard strange sounds within.
That sounds promisingly sinister, so they head toward it, although they make camp when they are still a fair ways off, and they take care to keep their watches carefully.
Because we have already traveled through a dungeon and scored a hit on our gather info, I’m going to rule that this is probably the thing we seek. To figure out what kind of dungeon it is, I’m going to roll from three options and I’ll randomly assign a theme: - Barrow
- Cavern
- Sea Cavern (river, in this case)
Result: Corrupted Cavern. Good theme result! I’m going to make this one formidable, because I think this should spell the end of my quest once we complete it. I haven’t finished a full, formidable dungeon yet, so we’ll see how it goes. Formidable means that there should be ~10 locations in the dungeon before I can be confident that I have cleared it. The next day they rise, but they take their time approaching the thicket. Even from far off they can feel a sense of
wrongness about it. Even so, glory (and hopefully payment!) lay on the other side, so they push forward.
Discover a Site: Corrupted Cavern (Formidable). They enter the thicket, fighting the horse and donkey all the way. Inguna finds a hint of a trail in the dead grass and leads them up a gentle rise to a low hillock. Just to the north lies the river; it would have been hidden behind a canopy in better days, but the bare tree limbs hide little. The circle of death extends equidistantly in all directions; even a few trees on the far side of the river are chalky gray instead of brown.
At the peak of the hillock stands a low wall of pale gray stone that is all that remains of the foundation of some building now long gone.
A dark pit, ringed by a strange red moss, gapes open in the earth like a sucking wound. A faint wet sound can be heard from within. “Underwater river,” Bjarn posits. All the rest pretend to believe him as they stake the animals and prepare to descend into the earth.
What do they find within? Something Unusual – Fortified/Hideaway. The pit descends as a narrow chute through almost twenty feet of earth until it emerges into a cavern of unworked stone. Gethin lifts his torch and paces the chamber while the rest of the party follows him down. By the time the last of them arrive, he has mapped the room. It is featureless and without exits except for a single door of iron set into the northern wall.
“This strange curse is no work of nature, red in tooth and claw,” Gethin observes. “Some man had a hand in this. And that man might still be here. Be ready.” The party draws their weapons.
[Delve the Depths (Wits): Mark progress and Reveal a Danger.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :1 boxes] Feature: Subterranean Waterway (Treacherous/Exit) Danger: Lose way or are delayed The door opens with a rusty groan, revealing a claustrophobic tunnel that sinks deeper into the stone. Gethin leads with his shield high as the others follow behind with torches and weapons. The fires cast long shadows that move strangely against the warped walls.
The faint water sounds become louder as they progress. Eventually, their tunnel opens into a large cavern that is split in half by a wide and swift river. The water is roaring here, for at the far end of the cavern the water gathers and throws up spray as it drains in a violent whirlpool.
“Where do you think it goes?” Inguna asks. None of them want to find out.
Unfortunately, there is no bridge and the span is too far to jump. They cast lots for who will have to swim across, and it falls on
[d5=] Inguna. “Guess you’ll get the chance to find out,” Somhaile jokes. Inguna doesn’t laugh as they tie a rope around his waist.
Face Danger (iron) to swim across: [Strong Hit: 5 + 3 + 0 = 8 vs 3 2]. +1m but I’m already at 10 (I should burn it!). He swims across but is swept quite a ways down stream before he reaches the far bank. They throw him a torch and wait as he secures the rope to a stone outcropping on his side. The rest of the party passes by safely, though they are cold and shivering when they emerge and begin to dress again.
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :2 boxes] Feature: Cramped Caves (Secret/Entry) The tunnel beyond the river leads to a series of cramped chambers. In one, a faint breeze stirs the air. They investigate and eventually find a chimney that might lead up into the world above, although the climb upward would be nearly impossible.
[Delve the Depths: Choose one: Mark progress or Find an Opportunity.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :3 boxes] Feature: Twisting Passages (Unstable/Valuables) Eventually, they progress out of the caves and into a maze of twisting passages. Time seems to stall as they track and backtrack their way through the tunnels. All grow weary and–truth be told–frightened when they realize that they have been underground for far longer than they had expected, and that the way out may not be trivial.
It is Somhaile who spots them first, with her keen thief’s eyes–a smattering of reflective discs down a side corridor. They investigate and realize that they are silver coins, shining in the torchlight. Someone has definitely been here. Somhaile pockets the coins as they pass, though the others want to leave them behind to track their return. “Leave your own silver, then,” she retorts.
Inguna drops a few coppers before he realizes that no one else is doing so. Feeling foolish, he stops.
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress and Reveal a Danger.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Cavern :4 boxes] [Reveal a Danger: Denizen controls dark magic] Feature: Vast Chamber (Fortified/Boundary) The passage emerges into another chamber, on that stretches out so far in all directions that their torchlight is swallowed by the darkness.
Face Danger (Wits) to detect the foe: [Miss: 3 + 2 + 0 = 5 vs 7 8]. Unwilling to become lost in the darkness, they decide to hug the walls and circle the cavern in a counterclockwise direction. Eventually, the come around again to the tunnel where they started. With nothing left to do, they leave the safety of the wall behind and step out into the great open chamber. Soon the wall is lost behind them. Their torchlight flickers feebly in the darkness, revealing a dim circle of dun beige stone floor and nothing but void beyond.
Eventually, something materializes out of the darkness–a squat, perfectly square structure of worked stone, possibly twenty paces to a side and 10′ high.
[Description: Assault/Desolation] Scenes of battle and destruction appear to be engraved upon its surface, but even in the still air underground the ancient carvings have been worn smooth by countless aeons.
In one wall stands a door. With no where else to go, they open it.
Here’s where the Face Danger miss comes into play. Let’s decide what kind of monster we’re facing. Monstrosity: giant-sized – fish (I’m going to interpret as eel) – spikes/spines – keen senses A robed figure stands within, hunched over a darkly stained altar. As the party enters, the figure turns and begins to howl. Foul green mist pours of its open mouth, billowing across the narrow room toward the party. None want to test it, so they fall back into the large chamber, slamming the door behind them.
Just then, a whistling sound fills the air. They look up just in time to see a shadow, almost iridescent in its blackness, falling from the ceiling. The thing strikes the ground just within the light of their torches. It is a silver-scaled thing with a mouth full of razor-pointed teeth; its head it huge, easily large enough to bite through a man’s torso if it can get hold of him. Suddenly it begins to move, wiggling forward like a snake with an explosive burst of speed.
Enter the Fray against Eel-Monster and Wizard (Formidable): [Weak Hit: 3 + 2 + 0 = 5 vs 6 4]. Keep initiative. Strike (I’m going to rule I can use my warband here): [Weak Hit: 1 + 4 + 0 = 5 vs 1 10]. [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :2 boxes] The band falls together into a group as the beast comes at them. Spears out, they manage to turn it aside just as it sends its snapping maw against Gethin’s shield. In a moment, it slithers out of sight around the building and disappears into the darkness.
They can hear it moving, just beyond the circle of torchlight. The band presses their backs together, peering futilely into the darkness.
Suddenly, it snaps forward out of the dark. Its body is long–they can see it now–dozens of feet long, and as thick around as a man. Heavy spines like sharpened quarterstaffs drag behind it, flaring from the sides of its body.
Clash: [Strong Hit: 5 + 4 + 0 = 9 vs 7 4] [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :5 boxes] The party scrambles aside at the last second and the beast cannot stop its momentum as it sails through their midst. They stick it several times at it passes, cutting long scores in its scaly hide.
Strike: [Weak Hit: 1 + 4 + 0 = 5 vs 3 6] [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :7 boxes] They follow it this time, gaining confidence. Several more hits land home. Suddenly, the door behind them smashes open and a whip of silver-green fire lashes out at them–the wizard has arrived.
Clash: [Weak Hit: 2 + 4 + 0 = 6 vs 10 1]. Can’t use momentum, so one of my men goes down. Who is hurt? Bjarn. [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :9 boxes] Sola, Gethin, and Inguna stay focused on the eel while Bjarn and Somhaile turn their attentions on the newly arrived wizard. The eel lashes out again, but not in time–Sola and Gethin form an effective wall while Inguna runs it through the neck with his spear. The thing writhes violently for a few moments, but it has been stuck well. It dies.
Just as the party turns, the wizard’s whip catches Bjarn across the chest. He goes down in a heap, like a puppet with the strings cut.
Clash: [Strong Hit: 5 + 3 + 0 = 8 vs 1 3] [Mark Progress: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :10 boxes] [Progress Roll: Battle: Eel-monster and wizard :Strong Hit = 10 vs 3 6] The wizard’s victory is short-lived. Somhaile manages to sneak behind the robed figure and plant her dagger in the center of its back. It collapses with a groan and lies still.
After that fight, I’m going to say we completed one of the major steps on our quest. Surely this wizard and big eel were related to Longhill’s troubles. [Mark Progress: Bring back the fishing :6 boxes] Was Bjarn killed (75%)? No! They go to Bjarn and find that he still lives, though his breathing is shallow and his eyes will not open. They need to get him rest, but none of them would be mad enough to rest in that cavern. Gethin and Somhaile investigate the building while Inguna and Sola try to prepare Bjarn to be moved.
What’s inside the building? Transform-Wound / Avenge-Time. The chamber is spartan in its decoration. The altar stands alone near one wall; near the other lies the top of a staircase that leads deeper into the earth. Gethin averts his eyes from the altar and even Somhaile turns away; neither know what poor creature contributed to the mass of tortured flesh upon the bare stone, but both are glad that they killed the robed figure outside.
This doesn’t seem like a good place to rest, so Bjarn is going to have to stay out of commission for a while. Meanwhile, I’m going to use the stairs as an opportunity to change the domain of this dungeon–instead of a Corrupted Cavern, we are now moving into a Corrupted Underkeep. Otherwise, progress remains the same. [Delve the Depths (Shadow): Choose one: Mark progress or Find an Opportunity.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :5 boxes] Feature: Hall or Chamber (Fragile/Exit) The party moves more slowly now, and with as much quiet as they can muster given Bjarn’s condition. Somhaile moves a few dozen paces ahead of the others, keeping an eye out for signs of trouble. The stairs descend into a large, worked hall. Colonnades progress up the sides of the hall and lead toward an imposing set of bronze doors, but when the party draws near they realize that the right hand doors is ajar; there is enough room to pass through without disturbing it.
[Delve the Depths: Choose one: Mark progress or Find an Opportunity.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :6 boxes] Feature: Foundry or Workshop (Foreboding/Breach) The door leads into a maze of 10′ wide corridors of worked stone. They choose a direction at random and move that way, passing several locked doors before coming at least to an open chamber. Light and heat emanate from within, but the room is empty. Inside, a forge’s embers lay dying. Strange tools of iron line the walls, devices of torture and war, twisted armor or weapons designed for bodies clearly inhuman.
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :7 boxes] Feature: Stairs into the Depths (Mystical/Threshold) Finally, they come to the end of the mazelike corridors. Another chamber stands there, and against the far end looms the maw of some devilish beast. It takes a heartbeat before they realize it is carven stone, and that within that maw stands a staircase that descends even deeper into the earth.
None of them want to follow it, but what choice do they have now?
[Delve the Depths: Mark progress and Reveal a Danger.] [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :8 boxes] Danger: Ancient Mechanism or Trap Feature: Carved Passages (Active/Entry) They descend further into the earth. The stairs spiral down, deeper and deeper, seemingly forever. Finally, they level out and open into a tunnel of perfectly smooth stone. They take cautious steps forward.
Face Danger (Wits) to avoid the trap: [Miss: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 8 8] That could be bad! I’ll use momentum. [Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 10 vs 8 8]. Reset to 2m. +1m (now 3). Suddenly, Somhaile reaches out and grabs Gethin’s armor and jerks him backwards off his feet. The clatters to the ground with a resounding echo. In a second he’s up, ready to berate her for making so much noise, but she puts her hand over his mouth. With a finger she points at the ground. A low wire, no thicker than a hair, runs at ankle height across the tunnel.
After a moment he removes her hand.
Thank you he mouths at her. She reaches forward and pulls the coin purse off his belt and ties it to her own. He decides that argument can wait for later.
[Delve the Depths: Take both: Mark progress and Find an Opportunity.] [Find an Opportunity: You are alerted to a potential threat.] +1 to next move and +1m on hit. [Mark Progress: Corrupted Underkeep :9 boxes] Feature: Shrine or Temple (Marked/History) Monstrosity: person-sized – beast – tentacles – crusheconstrictor The tunnel eventually leads to a small complex of carven chambers, all leading toward one center chamber. There, the ground slopes forward like an amphitheater toward a terrible shrine. That strange red mold grows everywhere here, red enough that it seems to glow with its own inner light. Water seeps in from countless tiny cracks on the walls, flowing down the pulsating mold and eventually draining through a small hole set before the altar.
A half dozen figures are here, worshipping at the altar on bended knee. The sound of their inhuman ululating covers the sounds of the party’s approach
[thanks Find an Opportunity!]. The adventurers ready their weapons and prepare to throw.
Battle: [Weak Hit: 2 + 3 + 1 = 6 vs 4 9]. Who pays the price? Sola. -1 strength to warband (now 2). The party’s ambush catches the cultists off guard and two of them are cut down immediately. The others turn, though, and the wailing becomes a scream of anger. They throw back their hoods, revealing faces that had once been human but are not mixed inseparable with that horrific red mold. Tentacles sprout from the fingers and backs as they run, spreading out from beneath dark fabric robes.
The party fights valiantly, holding the strange things off with fire and steel, and eventually the last of them lies dead. It is then that Gethin notices Sola, kneeling at the side of one of the defeated cultists. He goes to her, reaches out a hand, but that’s when he sees it–one of the cultist’s long tentacles has found a weak spot in her armor and has punched through her side.
Can he get the tentacle out without killing her? [Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 0 = 7 vs 4 10]. -1 Supply (now 4). The mold fears the fire, even in death, and he thrusts his torch into the wound on her side. She screams and tries to wrench away, but Inguna grabs her by the arms and holds her tight as Gethin thrusts the burning brand right into her flesh. She shudders, bites her own tongue until blood pours from her mouth, and falls still. He keeps the torch on her as her skin blisters and blackens.
Finally, he tosses the torch aside and digs in his pack for a small glass vial. He tips it into her mouth and holds back her head. The potion works quickly. The burnt flesh begins to pinken and scab. Her pale face flushes with color. Gethin sinks to his knees beside her.
Finally, he looks around. “I think we’ve done it,” he says.
Have they done it? Reach destination: [Progress Roll: Corrupted Underkeep :Strong Hit = 9 vs 4 7]. Success! +1m (now 4). [Mark Progress: Bring back the fishing :8 boxes] There is no where deeper to go. The put the torch to everything they can find. The mold on the walls catches and the fire races up toward the ceiling of the cave, filling the chamber with acrid smoke. The party then takes hammers to the altar and throws the shattered stones to the four corners of the chamber, so that even its foul presence will no longer infect the water seeping through the walls and down the drain.
Finally, they retrace their steps and, after many long hours, emerge once more onto the surface.
That's it for this session! And as a reminder: You can find links to every one of my solo session game reports on my Campaign Logs page on my blog. submitted by
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2023.05.30 17:06 WholeExtreme9631 Mid-to-Late Game Appreciation from my Experience (contains Spoilers)
I thought I'd whip up a post that sums up some things about this game I appreciate being in the mid-to-late phase of the game. This will include some spoilers of events that can occur in the game, so just be warned before reading on.
Okay here we go.
After all the time spent in the game, I can't stress how happy I am to be able to pick up my switch and still find things to do.
Currently I've done all the geoglyph quests, I cured all 4 regional phenomena, I chased Zelda through hyrule castle and beat the phantom Ganon boss fight, and all I have to do is go fight Ganondorf.
In classic Zelda fashion, I'm seeing how long I can wait before that last fight.
I just recently scavenged to get the whole Yiga armor set, I'm working on the bargainer quest under the great plateau, but what I'm amazed at is how well this game has not in one way or another felt bland due to my lack of some things.
Even though I'm well equipped with most of my weapons being 40ish+, I avoid every Lynel still, I never have the courage to take on a Gleeok, and my exploration of the sky and depths is still fairly minimal.
It baffles me being relatively so far into a game with still so much more to do other than shrine and korok hunting. This game makes me realize how little was left to do once you do the main story in breath of the wild and I LOVE it for that.
Here's to maybe killing that first Gleeok or Lynel soon 🥂
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2023.05.30 15:01 spunchy M&B 2023 Reading 2: Hyman Minsky
For our schedule and links to other discussions, see the Money and Banking 2023 master post. This week, we're discussing
The vision of Hyman P. Minsky, an intellectual biography of Hyman Minsky by Perry Mehrling from 1999. Among other things, this reading emphasizes Minsky's financial instability hypothesis and its connection to the "survival constraint": the idea that each economic actor needs to ensure that its cash inflows meet its cash commitments at any given time. We discussed the time patterns of cash flows and cash commitments in Lecture 4. Lining up your cash flows and meeting your survival constraint is the essence of liquidity.
In the Lecture 1, Mehrling says he thinks of this article as the "missing chapters" at the end of his first book,
The Money Interest and the Public Interest. In that book, he provides similar intellectual biographies for Allyn Young, Alvin Hansen, and Ed Shaw.
Perry Mehrling
says:
There are five sections in this reading, and it is pretty dense reading because I was trying to fit an entire intellectual biography into the length of a journal article. For present purposes, the most important section is the third, titled "Vision", because we are trying to build some intuition about the monetary system. Second in importance is the fourth section "Minsky and the World" which shows how Minsky used his vision to engage with the concrete problems of his own time, an account that may serve as a challenge for present day students of the money view to engage the concrete problems of the present time.
The five sections of the reading are as follows:
1. Life
Minsky had to decide between focusing on research or focusing on his political agenda of using full employment to fight poverty. He ended up choosing research. In his research agenda, he emphasized the role of the central bank as a lender of last resort.
Minsky’s emphasis on the support functions of the central bank as lender of last resort lost out to the dominant emphasis on the control functions of the central bank as manager of the money supply.
Page 134
Mehrling cites
Economic Policy for a Free Society by Henry Simons in reference to the influence that Simons had over Minsky's thinking.
Henry Simons was the source of Minsky’s lifelong interest in finance, as well as the idea that the fundamental flaw of modern capitalism stemmed from its banking and financial structure (Simons, 1948).
Page 132
2. Character
Production, consumption, and trade, are nothing more than flows of money in and out and between different economic units.
Page 138
Minsky emphasized the centrality of money. He de-emphasized the role of goods and the real side of the economy. In terms of sources and uses, the sale of a good is just a receipt of money. The purchase of a good is just an expenditure of money.
The most real thing is money, but money is nothing more than a form of debt, which is to say a commitment to pay money at some time in the future. The whole system is therefore fundamentally circular and self-referential. There is nothing underneath, as it were, holding it up.
Page 138
If the thing you're trying to understand is the monetary system, then money is the most "real" thing. If the system is self-referencial, then a financial crisis is what happens when those self-references come under strain.
3. Vision
Minsky’s worldview concerned not all economies, but only capitalist economies, by which he meant economies that are characterized by private ownership of the means of production. And it concerned not all capitalist economies, but only the ones that have developed a sophisticated system of finance to facilitate the ownership, creation, and refinance of capital assets. In these economies, so he seems to have thought, financial processes take on a life of their own, so that their logic effectively becomes the logic of finance. In Minsky’s own early words: “Capitalism is essentially a financial system, and the peculiar behavioral attributes of a capitalist economy center around the impact of finance upon system behavior” (Minsky, 1967a, p.33, my emphasis). This is the core insight that underlies all of Minsky’s work, and distinguishes his work from that of other economists. According to Minsky, we need to understand finance not because it is an important part of our modern economy, but because it is the very heart and motive force of that economy.
Page 139
For Minsky, the object of study was "financial capitalism," which was the label he applied to the economic system we currently live under.
All in all, Minsky’s is a sophisticated vision of modern capitalism. Probably most people who think this way become investment bankers, from which social position it becomes difficult to see clearly the downside of the logic of finance. For an investment banker, problems may arise, but the solution is always more finance or, more precisely, refinance and restructuring of existing commitments in order to make room for new commitments. Not so for Minsky, who never forgot the lessons of Lange and Simons that the logic of finance tends to produce inequality and instability, effects which history shows tend to undermine democratic political forms.
Page 142
It's not clear to me how generalizable Minsky's insights are beyond our present system of financial capitalism. Where do we draw the boundaries around financial capitalism? What counts as financial capitalism and what doesn't?
4. Minsky and the world
Inflation was difficult for Minsky to understand because of the thoroughgoing nominalism of his thought.
Page 146
Economists tend to start at the real side and then fit money into their thinking. Minsky seemed to start with money and work backwards. In either case, the price level and inflation lie at the interface between the monetary side and the real side.
Minsky seems to have started from the idea that, because government faces no survival constraint, imbalance between its cash commitments and cash flows shows up not as a tendency to crisis, but as a tendency to depreciation of future cash flows relative to present cash flows. This tendency takes the form of price inflation domestically and currency depreciation internationally. In effect, socialization of a private imbalance between cash commitments and cash flows (in order to avoid crisis) does not change the fact of imbalance, but only the mechanism through which adjustment takes place.
Page 146
Is it true that the government faces no survival constraint? What about from the central bank? Can the central bank choose not to roll over the government's funding?
Perhaps the central bank and the government jointly face no survival constraint when acting together—at least with respect to the particular money they issue. They can always pay debts denominated in their own money. But the same cash-flow imbalance that would otherwise put pressure on the survival constraint shows up in other prices of money besides par.
5. Minsky and the economists
What made the dollar money? Following Sayers, Minsky eventually came to the view that it is the ability of a unit to force a net cash flow in its favor that gives its liabilities liquidity (Minsky, 1986a). It was the ability of the Fed to make dollars scarce, not so much by reducing the outstanding stock of dollars as by forcing an incoming flow of dollars, that sustained the reserve currency position of the dollar in the dark years of 1979–1982 (Minsky, 1986b). In Minsky’s view, the key channel through which Volcker’s monetarism bolstered the dollar came through the effect of high interest rates on bolstering capital inflows from short-term dollar-denominated foreign debtors.
Page 151
If you can force cashflows in your direction, then you can always meet your cash commitments. If everyone knows this, then everyone knows that your liabilities are liquid. The question is whether this logic still make sense if your liabilities are the ultimate cash and there's no cash above you in the hierarchy.
To be sure, Minsky always emphasized the ‘endogeneity’ of money, and the origin of money in business finance. Furthermore, as early as 1972b, he emphasized that the central bank does not (and should not try to) control the quantity of money, but only the conditions of refinance.
Page 149
We have seen that credit expands and contracts as a part of the normal funcitoning of the economy. Controlling the quantity of money means choking off credit at a particular layer of the hierarchy. Which layer that is depends on what you include in your monetary aggregate.
Here are the Study Questions for this reading:
Minsky viewed the money market as the place where the balance between cash commitments and cash flows could be seen most clearly. People who have maturing commitments in excess of their current cash flows face the need to refinance in order to satisfy the “survival constraint”, and that demand for refinance shows up in the short term money rate of interest.
1) What is a cash commitment? What is meant by the “two-edged quality” of a cash commitment? What distinguishes robust from speculative from Ponzi finance?
2) Henry Simons “good financial society” is certainly a system of robust finance, since there is no private debt at all. Sketch the balance sheet relationships (business, household, government) that would exist in such a world. In terms of our dichotomy between government bank and bankers bank, is this an extreme version of the government bank system?
3) The Financial Instability Hypothesis suggests that there is a tendency for robust finance to give way to speculative and then Ponzi finance. Why? Why do people make cash commitments in the first place? Why do cash commitments that finance a profitable investment wind up relaxing future survival constraints?
4) Minsky views the lender of last resort function as central to monetary policy. How does lender of last resort work (balance sheets please)? Why does it work to forestall an incipient crisis?
5) Minsky viewed the US in the 1970s as an “ailing bank”. Persistent negative cash flows at the international level led to persistent depreciation of the dollar and rising domestic inflation. What parts of this analysis carry over to the present day, and what parts do not?
In 2015, Mehrling published a shorter biography of Minsky on his blog that further emphasizes the role of Joseph Schumpeter:
For more on Minsky, I recommend the book Minsky by Dan Neilson (u/soon-parted).
Please post responses to the study questions, or any other questions and comments below. We will have a one-hour live discussion of this lecture on Wednesday May 31st at 2:00pm EDT.
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2023.05.30 14:15 Heavyspire A Mother's Day Story
It will be a few more days until we can play again so I thought I would tell a tale.
A little backstory. When my wife and I started dating I was a senior in high school and she had just graduated the year before. I would play Diablo 1 and she would come over and watch me haggle with Wirt and adventure into the dungeons. She eventually started her own character, a sorcerer, and on school nights my parents would head to bed at about 10 and I would head to bed around 11. She would play for a little bit and let herself out. A couple occasions she heard my Mom's alarm that was set for 5am and hadn't realized the time that had gone by, she would sneak out as quietly as she could and was never caught.
Years later when D2 came out we were a young married family. Played D2 for hours into the evening and just enjoyed being able to play in the same game together instead of sharing the account and computer time. We eventually started playing Vanilla Wow and made it into a top raiding guild on the server we were on. My wife enjoyed questing more than raiding but I was proud of her for keeping up with the other players in the guild. Got into new guilds and met new people when The Burning Crusade came around and played through the early raids in WoTLK before eventually just not playing enough to justify the account membership.
When D3 came out I was excited but we didn't own a PC that could run the game. I pre-ordered the game on my Xbox and figured it would be a decent compromise to couch co-op. I had another friend who's wife was going to play too so I figured we would have a nice dungeon group. My wife attempted to play on controller and gave up before level 7 saying she needed the ability to just click the M1 button and sling the spells she was choosing on the keyboard and that the controller was too complicated to enjoy the game. I gave up trying and just enjoyed D3 and the expansion with her spectating the game, although she seemed less interested in D3 than the previous 2 games. Was I losing my Diablo Dungeon buddy? Was Facebook poisoning her screen time?
So D4 beta comes along and I talk my wife into giving it a shot since last year I helped my son build his own PC. She was able to sit and point and click like she enjoyed. She was definitely rusty and the first boss had her actually anxious since she was on her own in there. We took turns playing and leveling on the first beta. The server shuts down and she said she enjoyed her time. I ordered her a gaming laptop the next week. None of my 3 kids seem interested in playing Diablo, but my middle child did say it was great to see us gaming and having fun together.
Once that arrived we decided to play D2 Resurrected and have had fun running through Sanctuary again on the higher graphics. Assassin for me and Sorcerer for her.
So then Server Slam is announced. I roll a Twisted Blades rogue and my wife rolled a sorcerer. We played and got to level 20. We decided to level another set of characters. This time she chose Necromancer and I tried a Barbarian. I didn't stick with mine past level 10 but she enjoyed Necromancer enough that is the class she is going to play at launch.
Mothers day comes around and I woke up around 8 am and look into trying to attempt Ashava. I had never even made it over to the area that she spawned in. I knew she was coming at 9 am and I walked my character over just in case I could get a chance to attempt her. I went to the armorer and leveled all my gear up. My wife woke up around 8:30 and asked what I was up to and I said "Well... we could try to take on this world boss that is coming in about 25 minutes" she said OK and while she got out of bed I got her character logged in and teleported over to where Ashava spawns. I had watched a quick YouTube video explaining the tips and tricks to the fight so I wasn't totally unprepared. I explained to my wife to try her best to stay under the backside of her during the fight and stay out of the puddles.
Our group was ahead of the timer for the kill and I don't think I died until after we got her less than 50% I was hitting my marks and I feel like I was doing well on DPS for the group. And at this point my kids come downstairs for their Mother's Day gift presentation all excited to surprise their mom. I said "Not great timing here" They were like "Oh? What are you doing?" I'm mashing buttons here what does it look like!? They ended up getting to spectate and eventually my one son was calling out potions for my wife and my middle child was letting me know when I needed to dash out from the straight back claw attack. All three were now part of the team in this attempt to slay the demon. No one in our group of 10 or so players were reviving, I had no idea you could do that I was just just trying to stay on task. My wife ends up having to run to town at about 15% to repair. She makes it back to the fight and I die again and have to run to town with like 5% left and the timer very close to ending. As I am running over to the armorer I trip on a post outside the house and get stuck. Get to the armorer and my youngest starts counting the timer out loud "15 14 13 ..." I hit repair all and run back to the portal "7 6 5 ...". I get in and dash over to try and hit Ashava just as the timer runs out. And I think "Shit I was so close" as Ashava turns toward her spawn and someone, maybe even my wife, lands the killing blow. I see the beast collapse and the game announce "World Boss Defeated: Ashava the Pestilent."
My kids jump up and cheer I stand up and start throwing high-fives to everyone. I kiss and hug my wife and we all have a great family moment together, playing a game. It will be a Mother's Day event we will remember for years to come.
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2023.05.30 13:44 Dildo_Shagginz Frieza vs Kaos (Dragon Ball vs Skylanders) Fight Script
So,
Frieza vs Kaos, a matchup I'm really vibing with and that has quickly become my favorite for both, so it's only right I make a script for it right? I think this is my longest script yet as there was a lot I wanted to include in here, even if a good chunk of it can be dumbed down to "lasers" if you wanna do that lol (it's dragon ball, whatcha expect?) Anyways, I hope you enjoy!
We begin with a shot of the Skylands. Floating isles, hidden amongst a wafting of mist and fog high in the sky. Each was themed towards the different elements that power the land, its inhabitants and its defenders, the mighty Skylanders, however there was one location in particular reserved for the most rotten of them all. On the Cloudbreak Islands lay the Kaos Fortress, where the dark lord Kaos himself resides. In this fortress, Kaos sat on his large, comfortable chair, a chair that was realistically far too large for him to sit on. Standing next to him was his loyal right hand, a demure and lanky goblin man named Glumshanks, who held for Kaos a large strawberry milkshake that the dark lord was eagerly drinking. However, Kaos' drink was cut short by a new arrival. Floating down from the clouds above was a large, circular ship, made of high tech materials and construction. The flagship of the Frieza Force, reserved for their own Mighty Lord, Frieza himself. The hatch at the top of the ship opened up, and out from within floated up the white and purple tyrant himself. Clearing his throat as his tail casually swished around behind him, Frieza seemed as though he was preparing for some sort of business meeting with how casual he seemed. Although, his words were far from as disarming as his actions. "Haha, residents of the Skylands, it has come to my attention that you
exist. I tried to tell your Master Eon to kneel but the old man was delusional enough to deny me. And so I, the Mighty Lord Frieza, grant you the honor of being the first graveyard amongst the Skylands!"
He announced, casually raising his finger up to the air, a small burning orb of fiery light formed at the tip of his finger, swelling into the form of his deadly Supernova attack. It grew until it eclipsed the fortress below, before Frieza pointed down at the ground below, intending to detonate the island like he did to Planet Vegeta. However, before the Big Bang could hit the ground, a crackling aura of purple energy surrounded the attack. The aura held the attack back and forced it to shrink, shrinking it smaller and smaller until it was the size of a mere soccer ball before it transmuted into a confused, seemingly traumatized sheep. Kaos stepped out onto his balcony, with Glumshanks placing a large stepping stool out on the edge for his Lord to use to heighten himself. Handing Kaos a megaphone, Glumshanks stepped back and plugged his ears, preparing for the ear shattering speech to follow. "FOOL! You believe you get to rule the Skylands?? The Skylands belongs to me! The bringer of ultimate mega DOOM! LORD KAOS! GLUMSHANKS, TELL HIM,"
Kaos holds the megaphone down to Glumshanks mouth, and the monotone goblin spoke into it. "
sigh, yeah, yeah he's right."
Frieza chuckled, amused by the defiant buffoon, as more Frieza Force ships begin to descend from the clouds, launching pods filled with Saibamen onto the fortress. Manning the walls of the Kaos Fortress, trolls began to mount onto cannons and turrets to blast at the pods, blasting a few out of the air but missing a precious few, which landed on the ground and released their Saibamen. The Saibamen started blasting holes through the walls of the Fortress, flooding into it's inner walls to take it from the inside, only to find Cyclopes and Spell Punks meeting them within. "Send the Ginyu Force!"
Frieza commanded, cackling to himself as he watched his forces battle Kaos' down below and, as he commanded, the Ginyu Force landed on the Island, with their theme song playing as expected. In response Kaos screeched, "DOOMLANDERS! Don't just stand there, bring them their doom!!"
As he instructed as well, the Doomlanders met the Ginyu Force on the field of battle. The two groups would fight for a brief while, however soon enough the Doomlanders would emerge victorious. Kaos began to cheer for his victory, only to see a comet of purple energy hurtle towards the ground, slamming in the middle of the Doomlanders. Standing in the middle of the crater left behind was Frieza, the strength of his landing alone vaporizing the Doomlanders with the alien tyrant giving negative shits about it. He pointed up to Kaos, and a bright beam of purple light blasted from his finger towards the short portal master. Kaos narrowly leapt out of the way, with the beam blasting into the top of the fortress and blasting a hole through it's roof. As Kaos began descending, he used a spell to make himself float as he bared down on Frieza, flying towards him as he threw balls of blue fire at the white and purple alien. Frieza sidestepped and ducked around them, charging forward at Kaos with an attack prepared for him. When Kaos got close, Frieza whipped him with his tail and sent Kaos flying towards the ground, cratering the ground below him. "Oww! That was rude! Glumshanks, bring me a bandaid!"
He yelled, with his minion somehow understanding him even from so far away. Frieza landed down in front of Kaos, kicking him to the side to send him even further away, *right when Glumshanks reached the area with a comically large first aid kit in his hands,** causing the man to sigh as he realized how much more he'd have to run. Frieza floated over to Kaos, chuckling to himself.* "Interesting, you're being beaten to death and your crying over a boo-boo? I find you so pathetic that I'm tempted to let you live,"
Frieza teased, lifting Kaos up out of the ground and blasting him up into the air, blasting upwards into the sky to trail behind him. He blasted more and more rapid fire purple lasers, but Kaos was not outdone. Kaos teleported out of the air and back down to the ground, leaving Frieza confused until he looked back down to the ground, seeing Kaos mount up onto his supercharger that he got out of a portal he summoned. Igniting his superchargers engine, Kaos launched up into the air, now being the one to chase Frieza through the sky, sadly just as Glumshanks reached him again causing the poor servant to be launched back by the rocket boosters, sending the first aid kit out of his hands. Frieza now started flying away from Kaos, with Kaos flying after him and blasting his own purple lasers at Frieza in the shape of rings, waves, lines and zig-zags, throwing Frieza off his game and causing him to be pelted by lasers at every turn, all while Kaos monologued behind him. "Stupid fool! You run away from your doom? From Kaos? You'll only lose
tired… GLUMSHANKS! WHERE IS MY BANDAID?!"
After a while, Frieza started to wisen up to the patterns of Kaos' blasts and began to deftly dodge them, annoying Kaos. Summoning another portal, Kaos pulled out one of his artifacts, a powerful red and gold gauntlet. The Iron Fist of Arkus. "You have annoyed me for long enough, Freezer!"
Kaos said, his voice deep and distorted into that of a robot. Frieza's flight was halted as his tail was grabbed by Kaos, now in the form of a massive, powerful Arkeyan robot, his eyes glowing bright blue. "Unhand me you idio-"
Frieza yelled before his words were cut off, with Kaos swinging Frieza down onto a nearby mountain, pulverizing it with the force of the impact, leaving Frieza in a massive crater in the ground. However, Kaos was not done. Leaping up into the air with his massive robot form, Kaos landed a comically large peoples-elbow on his opponent who was currently many times smaller than him. Standing back up to his feet, Kaos stomped down onto the crater multiple times, smashing Frieza further and further into the ground, before pointing his head down to blast a powerful beam of light out of his eyes down into the crater. "That's…ENOUGH!"
Frieza cried out, a powerful burst of golden light dispersing the laser of the Arkeyan Kaos immediately as Frieza flew up to Kaos' head, landing a powerful punch into Kaos' chin in his now-golden form. Kaos was launched up into the sky but by the time his large, robotic frame was done flying up, Frieza was already behind him and pointing his finger forward, blasting repeated blasts of ki into his back, severing the gauntlet off of Kaos' robotic hand and reverting him back to his base form, showering the ground below in craters formed by Frieza's ki blasts, the ground being covered in a layer of smoke. "Fool…FOOL! You DARE power up? ONLY I GET TO POWER UP!"
Kaos whined, his voice growing distorted once again as he spoke. The smoke dispersed around him to reveal him in his Traptanium form, floating with a lower half made of Traptanium crystal and dark purple skin. He flew up to Frieza, blasting beams of purple energy at him as the two began to engage in a ranged air-skirmish. The two eventually get taken to melee, with Frieza kicking Kaos to the side where Kaos smacks into the screen, breaking it for a few seconds as he flies back into the fight again (cuz Traptanium Kaos breaks the fourth wall.) When Kaos flies back though, Frieza blasts Kaos back down to the ground, now following him to the ground and slowly, dramatically walking towards him. "This sparring session is getting less and less entertaining you buffoon,"
Frieza said. "Master Kaos, I have your bandaid,"
Glumshanks said, running up in-between Frieza and Kaos desperately panting for breath, bandages spilling out of it and flapping in the wind like loose toilet paper. "Want a large one or a small one?"
Glumshanks asked. Frieza rolled his eyes and pointed at the tall goblin man, Death Beam'ing him through the chest and causing Glumshanks to die, just like how Frieza killed Paragus. "Such a tragedy,"
Frieza mocked, before looking back at Kaos. Kaos however was…still. He wasn't screaming, he wasn't whining, he was just…angry. Very angry, and Frieza could tell. “So much for that blundering buffoonery! I did wonder when you would stop whini-“
Crackling purple light emanated from Kaos as his body bulked up and grew, cutting off Frieza's words. His muscles bulged and hulked out, metal armor covered his body, and his hair and eyes burned a bright, crackling blue…something that sparked a memory in the sadistic tyrant Frieza. When the smoke clears fully, a familiar cackle, now deepened, can be heard as Kaos emerges in his Super State and begins charging a blast. "Your doom will be slow, Frieza!"
Kaos threatened. “That’s…that’s…”
Frieza could barely force the words out of his mouth as a flash of memory crosses his mind…a memory of his second death, a familiar foe charging a similar blue blast. “FRIEZAAAAA!!!!”
Goku shouted in his memory Cut back to reality, Frieza’s flashback distracting him long enough for him to take the blast in the gut, sending Frieza to the ground. As it dissolves…he begins fuming in rage. “ANOTHER BLASTED!”
Frieza punches the ground with each word. “STUPID!”
Finally, rage overtakes him completely, in an ironic reference to the first transformation of the one who killed him in his cybernetic state, and he transforms into his Black form! “MONNNNKEEEEYYYYYY!!!!!!!!”
A powerful purple aura enveloped Frieza, his skin turning black and his eyes burning bright red. The two where now in their highest forms, and the fight would truly commence. The two battled against one another in the air and on the ground, blasting waves of energy at eachother in varying shapes and sizes. Kaos summoned his Doom Sharks, sending a wave of chomping energy sharks at Frieza who dispatched them quickly with a series of blasts. Frieza tried to land a flurry of punches on Kaos, but Kaos summoned his large, energy construct Doom Hands to grab the alien racist by the tail and smash him down on the floor, opening him up to more and more blasts of chaotic energy from Super Kaos. However, Frieza wasn't done yet. "I have had enough of this charade! Kaos, your end is now, and it only makes me more annoyed that I won't be able to savor your quick demise!"
Frieza cried out, flying up into the sky and raising a hand to the air, a large ball of purple energy forming above him as he prepared a large, powerful Death Ball. "Kaos doesn't know defeat, Frieza! But
you, you will know DOOM!" *Kaos shouted back in his deepened voice, raising his large Doom Hands as he prepared to catch the Death Ball. Frieza launched the ball, a wave of energy erupting from it as it collided with the Doom Hands… FRIEZA WIN
The Death Ball barely overpowers the Doom Hands, blasting through them and colliding into Kaos. Kaos screamed out in pain, using his magic to try and contain it like he did to the Supernova previously, but it was too much. The raw power of the Death Ball caused rocks and pebbles to rise up from the ground, orbiting it like a star, with the sheep-supernova from earlier swirling around alongside them. Eventually though, Kaos accepted his own doom, reverting to his base form as his body disintegrated, shouting his final lines. "YOU'RE STUPID!"
He shouted, as if trying to get one last insult in to his opponent. After Kaos was incinerated, Frieza floated down to the ground, his forms exhausting as he reverted to base, covered in bruises as he crossed his arms. "That's one island down…let's hope the rest have less childish rulers,"
Frieza said, not realizing he was pouting like a petulant child. KAOS WIN
Kaos's Doom Hands closed around the Death Ball, slowly compressing it and crushing it into nothingness. "T-thats not possible!"
Frieza cried out, before the Doom Hands grabbed him by the tail. Frieza was slammed down onto the ground, where Kaos used his Doom Hands to repeatedly pummel into his face. He summoned his Psychic Shot blades to stab into Frieza's limbs, pinning him to the ground as his Doom Hands beat the tyrant for death. "This is for Glumshanks you fool!"
Kaos cried out, "W-wait! No, stop! I am the mighty Lord Frieza-"
Frieza begged before Kaos finished his assault, splattering Frieza's head against the ground. Kaos reverted to his base form, falling back to the ground as his tongue comically hung out of his mouth in exhaustion. "Victory…belongs…to Kaos…fool…"
Kaos said, the final shot being of the supernova-sheep coming over and licking his face like the deer in Hulk vs Broly. CONCLUSION:
Best for both imo, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Lemme know your thoughts in the comments below.
submitted by
Dildo_Shagginz to
DeathBattleMatchups [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 13:34 MundaneReindeer324 Advice for load order/conflicting mods
So I’m fairly new to the modding scene on console. I’ve read different articles about LO and it isn’t very clear for certain mods where they go. I was wondering as the title suggests if I could get any advice for my LO on how to improve performance/stop conflicting mods ruining things, i.e. interior conflicts
1.USSEP 2.Campfire: Complete Camping Overhaul 3.USMP 4.eFPS 2.3 5.SLaWF 6.Cutting Room Floor 7.Bushcraft 8.Dragon UI 9.A Quality World Map (Classic/all roads) 10.Main Theme Replacer w/ Nerevar Rising 11.Font Replacer Eadui 12.Cheat Room (XB1) 13.Survival Mode Settings 14.Civil War Quest Immersion Bundle 15.Darker Brotherhood V2 16.Better Thieving Updated 17.[XB1] Recover Cities 18.Sheo’s Skyrim Landscape and 4K mountains 19.DAWN: Dramatic Atmospheres etc 20.A Greener Skyrim 21.Happy Little Trees 22.David’s Trees 23.EEKs Renthal Flora Collection 24.Riften Summer Edition Green Grass 25.Whiterun Summer Edition Green Grass 26.Remove Misc Flora 27.Better Water 2 (4K) for Realistic Water 2 28.Blended Shorelines 29.Hyperborean Snow 30.Better Skyrim Snow 31.Snowy landscapes in snowy regions 32.Audio SFX overhaul 33.Magical Forces and FX bundle 34.Luminescence - A lighting overhaul 35.Northern Towns: Weistone and Port Amon 36.Environs The Shrines of Talos 37.Solstheim Reborn 38.Bridges,Ferries and Fords 39.Skyrim Better Roads 40.Happy Little Trees - DLC Trees 41.Capital Windhelm Expansion 42.RedBag’s Solitude 43.Riften Docks overhaul & Southwood exp 44.The Great Cities, Towns and Villages Bundle 45.Capital Whiterun Expansion 46.Riverwood By Nesbit 47.Stendarr Rising 48.[XB1] Skaal Village Overhaul 49.Simple Raven Rock Expansion 50.Better Tel Mithryn 51.Fortified Whiterun Compatible version 52.Sky Haven Temple Gardens 1k 53.JK’s Whiterun Outskirts 54.Imperial Fort Battlements 55.Greater Markarth Expansion 56.Skyrim Border Holds 57.Ryn’s Farms AIO 58.[XB1] Julihah’s Old Town Riften 59.Draco’s Lakeview Manor Upgrades 60.ClefJ’s Fort Dawnguard 61.Draco’s Heljarchen Upgrades 62.Draco’s Windstad Upgrades 63.Windstad Mine XB1 64.Heljarchen Farm XB1 65.DK’s Realistic and Lore Friendly Ships 66.Huntsman’s Hut 67.Anise’s Cabin (without Anise) 68.Windhelm Lighthouse (New) 69.Whispering Waters XB1 70.Winterhold Beacon 71.Castle Volkihar Rebuilt 72.Environs The Greenwood Shack 73.Environs Ruined Tundra Farmhouse 74.Environs Western Watchtower 75.Point The Way 76.Bring Out Your Dead 77.JK’s Interiors AIO 78. Chantry College of Winterhold 79. Raven Rock Interiors Morvayn Manor 80.Raven Rock Interiors Severin Manor 81.Better Innteriors 82.Better Innteriors- JK’s Interiors Compatible 83.Tem’s Houses AiO 84.Anna’s Honeyside 85.Anna’s Hjerim 86.Anna’s Proudspire Manor 87.Anna’s Breezehome 88.Anna’s Vilndrel Hall 89.Raven Rock Interiors- Raven Rock Temple 90.Less Interior Fog 91.Fort Dawnguard Brighter and Cleaner 92. Civil War and Guards Armory 93.Zim’s Immersive Artifacts 94.Kukatsuo Thane Weapon Replacer 95.Chainmail Armor 1k 96.ArteFakes Unique Artifacts Replacer 97.Nordic Fur Armor 1k 98.Wearable Lanterns 99.Skyrim Reputation 100.Immersive Citizens AI Overhaul 101.Misc dialogue edits and more dialogue options 102.IronDusk33 Compendium 103.Modern Combat AI 104.DAR Smooth Animations 105.[XB1] Marry Almost Anyone 106.[XB1] Adopt Almost Any Child 107.Epic Crab’s Lawbringer+ 108.Sensible Horses and Travel 109.Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions 110.Immersive Patrols 111.Realistic Conversation (XB1) 112.Rich Merchants of Skyrim (XB1) 113.Peaceful Hearthfire 114.Big Leap 3X Jump 115.Jarl’s Complete Character Overhaul 116.Fashions of the Fourth Era 117.Beards 118.Brows 119.Elegant Jarls (XB1) 120.Alternate Start Live Another Life 121.From the Rift to the Reach 122.Add On- SMIM Performance 123.HD Terrrain LOD Mesh 124.Rally’s All the things bundle 125.A dance with diverse dragons 126.Skyland Happy Little Trees Bark 127.Sigils Of Skyrim 128.Skyland Furniture 129.Darker Blended Roads 130.ZZJay’s Horse Overhaul 131.Animated Water Forge & ELSOPA fix 132.Flickering Meshes Fix- SMIM 133.Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods 134.Landscape Seam Fixes 135.Improved Performance 136.SLaWF Patch_ Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods 137.JK’s Whiterun Outskirts and Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods Patch 138.Better Innteriors- The Great Cities,Towns and Villages Bundle Patch 139.JK’s Whiterun Outskirts and Capital Whiterun Expansion Patch 140.SLaWF Patch_SMIM 141.Project Immersion JK’s Interiors Patch 142.Whiterun Outskirts and Cutting Room Floor Patch 143.Whiterun Outskirts and Immersive Citizens Patch 144.USMP Immersive Citizens Patch 145.RedBag’s Solitude and USSEP Patch 146.USMP Cutting Room Floor Patch 147.Uncap FPS
submitted by
MundaneReindeer324 to
SkyrimModsXbox [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 13:34 SystemSpark [USA] [H] TotK CE, Bomberman 64 2, Boktai 2, .Hack Quaratine, Kid Dracula, Wild Guns, River City Girls, Valkyrie Profile, Power Stone, Faira, Switch/Wii/WiiU/PSP/PS1/PS2/PS3/PS4/PS5/DS/3DS/GBA/GB/NES/SNES/N64/NGC/Genesis/Saturn Games, amiibo, Controllers, Joy-Con,Nintendo Swag [W] Lists, Listed
Photos upon request
| amiibo | Condition |
| Zelda Loftwing | New In Box |
| Sanrio amiibo cards | Sealed Pack |
| Inkling Boy - Neon Green | Loose/Mint |
| Mario Cereal Box | Cereal Removed/Flattened |
| Isabelle Summer Outfit | Open Box |
| Cyrus/K.K./Reese | New In Box/Damaged box |
| Tom Nook | New In Box |
| Mabel | New In Box |
| Switch | Condition |
| Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack | Sealed |
| Aggelos | Complete in Box |
| Bendy and the Ink Machine | Complete in Box |
| Cruel King and the Great Hero Storybook Edition | Complete in Box |
| Disgaea 1 Rosen Edition | Complete in Box |
| Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Collector's Edition | Sealed |
| Metroid Dread Collector's Edition | Sealed, a few dings associated with shipping |
| Monster Hunter Stories 2 Collector's Edition | Sealed |
| The Mummy Demastered | Complete in Box |
| Pokemon Sword + Expansion | Cart only, Expansion pass is on cartridge |
| River City Girls | Sealed, Best Buy Variant |
| Shadowverse Champion's Battle | Loose |
| Shantae Collector's Edition | Sealed |
| Shantae Risky's Revenge Collector's Edition | Sealed |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection | Sealed |
| Unravel 2 | Sealed |
| Yu-Gi-Oh Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution | Loose |
| Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap | Complete in Box |
| Wii | Condition |
| Batallion Wars 2 | Game and Case |
| Castle of Shikigami III | Complete in Box |
| Okami | Game and Case |
| WiiU Games | Condition |
| Batman Arkham City Armored Edition | Sealed |
| Disney Infinity 2.0 | Sealed |
| Mario Kart 8 | Complete in Box |
| Nintendoland | Complete in Box |
| Star Fox Guard | Complete in Box |
| DS | Condition |
| Super Scribblenauts | Loose |
| Witch's Wish | Game and Case, missing manual |
| 3DS | Condition |
| Kid Icarus Uprising (Japanese) | Game, Manual, and Case (No Big Box) |
| GBA | Condition |
| Boktai 2 | Loose |
| Game & Watch Gallery 4 | Loose, Torn Label |
| Lady Sia | Loose, EU import |
| Lady Sia | Loose. Label imperfections |
| Super Puzzle Fighter 2 | Complete in Box |
| Super Mario Advance | No label |
| GB | Condition |
| Alleyway | Loose |
| Castlevania Legends | Loose, label wear |
| Kid Dracula | Loose |
| NES | Condition |
| Faria | Game and Box. Box has some wear |
| Kid Icarus | Game, Box, and Manual; Box shows wear; Protective case for box and manual included |
| SNES | Condition |
| Mortal Kombat II | Loose |
| Super Scope 6 | Loose |
| Wild Guns | Loose, Bad Label Damage |
| N64 | Condition |
| Bomber Man 64 The Second Attack! | Loose |
| Pokemon Snap | Loose |
| Gamecube | Condition |
| Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles | Disc and case. Artwork is a little dinged up. No Manual |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Complete in Box, blockbuster stickers on case. |
| Super Mario Sunshine | Game and Manual. Case included, but the artwork may be a reprint. |
| Sega Genesis | Condition |
| Genesis 6-Pak | Loose cartridge |
| Jurrassic Park | Loose cartridge, Sharpie on Label |
| Phantasy Star IV | Loose cartridge, Label Damage |
| Quackshot | Complete In Box |
| Rocket Knight Adventures | Loose cartridge, Label Damage |
| Spider-Man | Loose cartridge, Label Damage |
| Sega Saturn | Condition |
| Vampire Savior (Import, Dark Stalkers 2) | Game and artwork, no spine slip. Some creases in the artwork. |
| Sega Dreamcast | Condition |
| Power Stone | CIB |
| Power Stone 2 | CIB |
| PSP | Condition |
| Silent Hill Origins | Game and Case |
| PS1 | Condition |
| Castlevania Chronicles | Loose |
| Chocobo's Dungeon 2 | Complete in Box |
| Crash Bash | Complete in Box |
| Dark Stalkers | Loose |
| Dark Stalkers 3 | Loose |
| Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver | Loose |
| Silent Hill | Loose disc |
| Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo | Complete in Box |
| Valkyrie Profile | Discs and Case, no manual |
| World of Dragon Warrior Torneko The Last Hope | Loose disc |
| PS2 | Condition |
| Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance | Complete in Box; Greatest Hits |
| Burnout | Complete in Box; Greatest Hits |
| Burnout 2 | Loose Disc |
| Burnout 3 Takedown | Complete, Water Damage on back cover art |
| Burnout Dominator | Case and Disc, Disc has superficial scratches but still boots |
| Burnout Revenge | Complete, Greatest Hits |
| Castlevania Curse of Darkness | Loose, Disc has light scratching |
| Crash Bandicoot The Wrath of Cortex | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi | Complete in Box; Greatest Hits |
| Final Fantasy X | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Final Fantasy X-2 | Complete; Greatest Hits |
| God of War II | Complete; Greatest Hits |
| Grand Theft Auto Vice City | Disc, Case, Poster, No Manual |
| .Hack Quaratine | Game, Anime Disc, and Case. Missing Manual |
| Jak and Daxter | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Marvel vs Capcom 2 | Cracked Disc, won't boot for me. Comes with case, no manual |
| Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Naruto Ultimate Ninja 2 | Disc and Case |
| Need for Speed Underground | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Resident Evil Dead Aim | Game and Case, No manual |
| Scarface | Complete; Greatest Hits |
| Star Wars Battlefront II | Disc and Case |
| Tekken Tag Tournament | Disc and Case; Greatest Hits |
| PS3 | Condition |
| Castlevania Lord of Shadow Collection | Loose |
| PS4 | Condition |
| APEX Construct | Sealed |
| PS5 | Condition |
| Battlefield 2042 | Complete in Box |
| XBOX One | Condition |
| Watchdogs | Sealed |
| Consoles | Condition |
| Monster Hunter Rise Edition Switch | New in Box (No game code) |
| Playstation 2 w/FreeMcBoot | Original PS2 "Fat" system. Won't read PS1 or blue PS2 discs. Laser could be ready to go bad, or just need re-alignment. Comes with a Yellow PS2 Memory Card that has FreeMcBoot on it. Free McBoot will allow you to to play games off of a hard drive if desired. No cords/controllers included. |
| Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Edition OLED Switch | New In Box |
| Sega Dreamcast | Includes Deck, 1 Controller, Power Cable, and AV Cable |
| SNES Jr. | Includes Deck, RF Coax Cable, Third Party AC Adapter, and Third Party Controller. Small crack on the corner. |
| Splatoon 3 Edition OLED Switch | |
| Controllers | Condition |
| Fortnite Joy-Con Set | Comes from the Fortnite Edition Console, never used |
| Joy-Con Grip | Bagged/Unused - Came with console |
| Oculus Quest 1/Rift S Left Controller | Used but very good condition. Comes with silicon case |
| Oculus Quest 1/Rift S Right Controller | Used but very good condition. Comes with silicon case |
| Platinum Gamecube Controller | Third Party, no nintendo logo, wired, good condition |
| Joy-Con (Left/Gray) | Good, no drift |
| Joy-Con (Right/Neon Red) | Good, no drift, Factory refurbished |
| SNES Controller | Third Party, no nintendo logo |
| SPIN Z WiiU Pro Controller | Black, Near Mint |
| SPIN Z WiiU Pro Controller | Black, Near Mint |
| Misc. | Condition |
| 3D Printed Question Block Switch Cart Case | Holds 6 switch carts and 6 Micro SD Cards |
| Black MagicGate 8MB PS2 Memory Card | Has Free McBoot loaded onto the card |
| Blue MagicGate 8MB PS2 Memory Card | Has Free McBoot loaded onto the card |
| Yellow Nyko MagicGate 8MB PS2 Memory Card | Has Free McBoot loaded onto the card |
| Super Smash Bros Ultimate Nintendo Switch ConsoleBox Only | Empty Box, good condition |
| Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch Console Box Only | Empty Box, good condition |
| Pokemon Dialga & Palkia Switch Lite Box Only | Empty Box, good condition |
| Fortnite Nintendo Switch Console Box Only | Empty Box, good condition |
| The Art of Splatoon 2 | Sealed |
| Kid Icarus Uprising Players Guide (Imported, no AR cards) | Shows a little wear |
| Nintendo Switch AC Adapter | Gently used |
| Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Pre-Order Coin | Sealed |
| Breath of the Wild Sheikah Coin | From BotW Special Edition, Good condition |
| Pokken Art Cel Pre-Order Bonus | Sealed |
| Blastoise New 3DS Plates | Plates are mint and unused |
| Nintendo 3DS Stand | OEM, Came with Kid Icarus Uprising |
| Kid Icarus AR Card Set (205/404) | Contains 205 different US cards, no duplicates. This is roughly half the entire set. An itemized list can be provided upon request. |
| Kid Icarus AR - Pit Rally Cry Sealed Pack | Sealed pack of cards that contains AKDE-403,014,086 |
| Shantae Risky's Revenge 2 LP Soundtrack Vinyl | Sealed |
| Cases | Condition |
| Dot Hack (.HACK) Infection | Case & Manual |
| Dot Hack (.HACK) Mutation | Case only |
| Dot Hack (.HACK) Outbreak | Case & Manual |
| The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom | Includes everything but the game |
| God of War Chains of Olympus | Case and Manual Only |
| Freebies | Condition |
| Gold Game & Watch Stand | Gold Game & Watch stand meant for the 35th Anniversary Edition Zelda G&W, but likely works with others. |
| Playstation 2 IDE Connector | Upgraded my HD Adapter to SATA, these are the old/leftover connectors. |
| Leapster Games | |
| Wants | Console |
| Kid Icarus Uprising AR Cards: AKDE-025 AKDE-039 (Will consider others) | None |
| Asheron's Call Memorabilia | PC |
| Game & Watch Devices (Excluding 35th Mario & Zelda editions) | None |
| Sola to robo | DS |
| Izuna Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (Case Only) | DS |
| Little Red Ridinghood Zombie BBQ | DS |
| Metal Gear Acid | PSP |
| Classic NES Series: Ice Climbers | GBA |
| Classic NES Series: Excitebike | GBA |
| Classic NES Series: Dr. Mario | GBA |
| Classic NES Series: Donkey Kong | GBA |
| Classic NES Series: Pac-Man | GBA |
| Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda | GBA |
| Classic NES Series: Xevious | GBA |
| Pokemon Puzzle Challenge | GBC |
| Night Warriors Darkstalkers Revenge (Case & Manual Only) | Saturn |
| R.O.B. Accessories | NES |
| Turbo | Wii U |
| Blaster Master 2 | Genesis |
submitted by
SystemSpark to
gameswap [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 13:34 SystemSpark [USA] [H] TotK CE, Bomberman 64 2, Boktai 2, .Hack Quaratine, Kid Dracula, Wild Guns, River City Girls, Valkyrie Profile, Power Stone, Faira, Switch/Wii/WiiU/PSP/PS1/PS2/PS3/PS4/PS5/DS/3DS/GBA/GB/NES/SNES/N64/NGC/Genesis/Saturn Games, amiibo, Controllers, Joy-Con,Nintendo Swag [W] Paypal F&F
Prices are subjective, negotiable, and do not include shipping. Photos upon request
| amiibo | Price | Condition |
| Zelda Loftwing | 30 | New In Box |
| Sanrio amiibo cards | 12 | Sealed Pack |
| Inkling Boy - Neon Green | 39 | Loose/Mint |
| Mario Cereal Box | 15 | Cereal Removed/Flattened |
| Isabelle Summer Outfit | 40 | Open Box |
| Cyrus/K.K./Reese | 18 | New In Box/Damaged box |
| Tom Nook | 12 | New In Box |
| Mabel | 9 | New In Box |
| Switch | Price | Condition |
| Azure Striker Gunvolt Striker Pack | 40 | Sealed |
| Aggelos | 40 | Complete in Box |
| Bendy and the Ink Machine | 30 | Complete in Box |
| Cruel King and the Great Hero Storybook Edition | 60 | Complete in Box |
| Disgaea 1 Rosen Edition | 100 | Complete in Box |
| Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Collector's Edition | 200 | Sealed |
| Metroid Dread Collector's Edition | 110 | Sealed, a few dings associated with shipping |
| Monster Hunter Stories 2 Collector's Edition | 160 | Sealed |
| The Mummy Demastered | 55 | Complete in Box |
| Pokemon Sword + Expansion | 110 | Cart only, Expansion pass is on cartridge |
| River City Girls | 200 | Sealed, Best Buy Variant |
| Shadowverse Champion's Battle | 15 | Loose |
| Shantae Collector's Edition | 150 | Sealed |
| Shantae Risky's Revenge Collector's Edition | 150 | Sealed |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection | 30 | Sealed |
| Unravel 2 | 30 | Sealed |
| Yu-Gi-Oh Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution | 18 | Loose |
| Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap | 40 | Complete in Box |
| Wii | Price | Condition |
| Batallion Wars 2 | 11 | Game and Case |
| Castle of Shikigami III | 75 | Complete in Box |
| Okami | 10 | Game and Case |
| WiiU Games | Price | Condition |
| Batman Arkham City Armored Edition | 40 | Sealed |
| Disney Infinity 2.0 | 15 | Sealed |
| Mario Kart 8 | 15 | Complete in Box |
| Nintendoland | 10 | Complete in Box |
| Star Fox Guard | 10 | Complete in Box |
| DS | Price | Condition |
| Super Scribblenauts | 5 | Loose |
| Witch's Wish | 120 | Game and Case, missing manual |
| 3DS | Price | Condition |
| Kid Icarus Uprising (Japanese) | 40 | Game, Manual, and Case (No Big Box) |
| GBA | Price | Condition |
| Boktai 2 | 200 | Loose |
| Game & Watch Gallery 4 | 16 | Loose, Torn Label |
| Lady Sia | 30 | Loose, EU import |
| Lady Sia | 50 | Loose. Label imperfections |
| Super Puzzle Fighter 2 | 60 | Complete in Box |
| Super Mario Advance | 13 | No label |
| GB | Price | Condition |
| Alleyway | 5 | Loose |
| Castlevania Legends | 180 | Loose, label wear |
| Kid Dracula | 240 | Loose |
| NES | Price | Condition |
| Faria | 200 | Game and Box. Box has some wear |
| Kid Icarus | 180 | Game, Box, and Manual; Box shows wear; Protective case for box and manual included |
| SNES | Price | Condition |
| Mortal Kombat II | 20 | Loose |
| Super Scope 6 | 22 | Loose |
| Wild Guns | 270 | Loose, Bad Label Damage |
| N64 | Price | Condition |
| Bomber Man 64 The Second Attack! | 250 | Loose |
| Pokemon Snap | 20 | Loose |
| Gamecube | Price | Condition |
| Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles | 14 | Disc and case. Artwork is a little dinged up. No Manual |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | 16 | Complete in Box, blockbuster stickers on case. |
| Super Mario Sunshine | 40 | Game and Manual. Case included, but the artwork may be a reprint. |
| Sega Genesis | Price | Condition |
| Genesis 6-Pak | 18 | Loose cartridge |
| Jurrassic Park | 10 | Loose cartridge, Sharpie on Label |
| Phantasy Star IV | 70 | Loose cartridge, Label Damage |
| Quackshot | 40 | Complete In Box |
| Rocket Knight Adventures | 37 | Loose cartridge, Label Damage |
| Spider-Man | 12 | Loose cartridge, Label Damage |
| Sega Saturn | Price | Condition |
| Vampire Savior (Import, Dark Stalkers 2) | 40 | Game and artwork, no spine slip. Some creases in the artwork. |
| Sega Dreamcast | Price | Condition |
| Power Stone | 120 | CIB |
| Power Stone 2 | 160 | CIB |
| PSP | Price | Condition |
| Silent Hill Origins | 50 | Game and Case |
| PS1 | Price | Condition |
| Castlevania Chronicles | 120 | Loose |
| Chocobo's Dungeon 2 | 100 | Complete in Box |
| Crash Bash | 15 | Complete in Box |
| Dark Stalkers | 47 | Loose |
| Dark Stalkers 3 | 47 | Loose |
| Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver | 18 | Loose |
| Silent Hill | 105 | Loose disc |
| Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo | 40 | Complete in Box |
| Valkyrie Profile | 325 | Discs and Case, no manual |
| World of Dragon Warrior Torneko The Last Hope | 80 | Loose disc |
| PS2 | Price | Condition |
| Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance | 17 | Complete in Box; Greatest Hits |
| Burnout | 8 | Complete in Box; Greatest Hits |
| Burnout 2 | 8 | Loose Disc |
| Burnout 3 Takedown | 11 | Complete, Water Damage on back cover art |
| Burnout Dominator | 9 | Case and Disc, Disc has superficial scratches but still boots |
| Burnout Revenge | 10 | Complete, Greatest Hits |
| Castlevania Curse of Darkness | 60 | Loose, Disc has light scratching |
| Crash Bandicoot The Wrath of Cortex | 10 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi | 15 | Complete in Box; Greatest Hits |
| Final Fantasy X | 6 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Final Fantasy X-2 | 6 | Complete; Greatest Hits |
| God of War II | 13 | Complete; Greatest Hits |
| Grand Theft Auto Vice City | 10 | Disc, Case, Poster, No Manual |
| .Hack Quaratine | 300 | Game, Anime Disc, and Case. Missing Manual |
| Jak and Daxter | 10 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Marvel vs Capcom 2 | 60 | Cracked Disc, won't boot for me. Comes with case, no manual |
| Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty | 10 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Naruto Ultimate Ninja 2 | 10 | Disc and Case |
| Need for Speed Underground | 10 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 | 10 | Greatest Hits, Used, Disc and Case |
| Resident Evil Dead Aim | 50 | Game and Case, No manual |
| Scarface | 40 | Complete; Greatest Hits |
| Star Wars Battlefront II | 10 | Disc and Case |
| Tekken Tag Tournament | 10 | Disc and Case; Greatest Hits |
| PS3 | Price | Condition |
| Castlevania Lord of Shadow Collection | 30 | Loose |
| PS4 | Price | Condition |
| APEX Construct | 15 | Sealed |
| PS5 | Price | Condition |
| Battlefield 2042 | 20 | Complete in Box |
| XBOX One | Price | Condition |
| Watchdogs | 15 | Sealed |
| Consoles | Price | Condition |
| Monster Hunter Rise Edition Switch | 420 | New in Box (No game code) |
| Playstation 2 w/FreeMcBoot | 80 | Original PS2 "Fat" system. Won't read PS1 or blue PS2 discs. Laser could be ready to go bad, or just need re-alignment. Comes with a Yellow PS2 Memory Card that has FreeMcBoot on it. Free McBoot will allow you to to play games off of a hard drive if desired. No cords/controllers included. |
| Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Edition OLED Switch | 400 | New In Box |
| Sega Dreamcast | 120 | Includes Deck, 1 Controller, Power Cable, and AV Cable |
| SNES Jr. | 120 | Includes Deck, RF Coax Cable, Third Party AC Adapter, and Third Party Controller. Small crack on the corner. |
| Splatoon 3 Edition OLED Switch | 400 | |
| Controllers | Price | Condition |
| Fortnite Joy-Con Set | 120 | Comes from the Fortnite Edition Console, never used |
| Joy-Con Grip | 8 | Bagged/Unused - Came with console |
| Oculus Quest 1/Rift S Left Controller | 115 | Used but very good condition. Comes with silicon case |
| Oculus Quest 1/Rift S Right Controller | 115 | Used but very good condition. Comes with silicon case |
| Platinum Gamecube Controller | 20 | Third Party, no nintendo logo, wired, good condition |
| Joy-Con (Left/Gray) | 35 | Good, no drift |
| Joy-Con (Right/Neon Red) | 35 | Good, no drift, Factory refurbished |
| SNES Controller | 10 | Third Party, no nintendo logo |
| SPIN Z WiiU Pro Controller | 25 | Black, Near Mint |
| SPIN Z WiiU Pro Controller | 25 | Black, Near Mint |
| Misc. | Price | Condition |
| 3D Printed Question Block Switch Cart Case | 12 | Holds 6 switch carts and 6 Micro SD Cards |
| Black MagicGate 8MB PS2 Memory Card | 20 | Has Free McBoot loaded onto the card |
| Blue MagicGate 8MB PS2 Memory Card | 20 | Has Free McBoot loaded onto the card |
| Yellow Nyko MagicGate 8MB PS2 Memory Card | 20 | Has Free McBoot loaded onto the card |
| Super Smash Bros Ultimate Nintendo Switch ConsoleBox Only | 90 | Empty Box, good condition |
| Animal Crossing Nintendo Switch Console Box Only | 20 | Empty Box, good condition |
| Pokemon Dialga & Palkia Switch Lite Box Only | 30 | Empty Box, good condition |
| Fortnite Nintendo Switch Console Box Only | 20 | Empty Box, good condition |
| The Art of Splatoon 2 | 300 | Sealed |
| Kid Icarus Uprising Players Guide (Imported, no AR cards) | 30 | Shows a little wear |
| Nintendo Switch AC Adapter | 20 | Gently used |
| Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Pre-Order Coin | 15 | Sealed |
| Breath of the Wild Sheikah Coin | 25 | From BotW Special Edition, Good condition |
| Pokken Art Cel Pre-Order Bonus | 7 | Sealed |
| Blastoise New 3DS Plates | 150 | Plates are mint and unused |
| Nintendo 3DS Stand | 30 | OEM, Came with Kid Icarus Uprising |
| Kid Icarus AR Card Set (205/404) | 600 | Contains 205 different US cards, no duplicates. This is roughly half the entire set. An itemized list can be provided upon request. |
| Kid Icarus AR - Pit Rally Cry Sealed Pack | 20 | Sealed pack of cards that contains AKDE-403,014,086 |
| Shantae Risky's Revenge 2 LP Soundtrack Vinyl | 55 | Sealed |
| Cases | Price | Condition |
| Dot Hack (.HACK) Infection | 20 | Case & Manual |
| Dot Hack (.HACK) Mutation | 20 | Case only |
| Dot Hack (.HACK) Outbreak | 30 | Case & Manual |
| The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom | 150 | Includes everything but the game |
| God of War Chains of Olympus | 15 | Case and Manual Only |
| Freebies | Price | Condition |
| Gold Game & Watch Stand | Free with purchase | Gold Game & Watch stand meant for the 35th Anniversary Edition Zelda G&W, but likely works with others. |
| Playstation 2 IDE Connector | Free with purchase | Upgraded my HD Adapter to SATA, these are the old/leftover connectors. |
| Leapster Games | Free with purchase | |
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