IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME…

The Weasel Runs At Midnight – The Drop [Top Secret: NWO]

THE MAGICAL/MIRACULOUS/METAMORPHIC COSTUME

This post on Public Domain gave me a Gaming Idea, but also one for Real Life.

But in Gaming the idea of full-sets of “Magical Costumes” (antique and unique artifacts, benign, and cursed – perhaps even relical) to Act as Armor, Camouflage, Costume, Cover, and Disguise.

Come to think of it, it gave me a few Literary Ideas as well, especially for scifi and fantasy and pulp.

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/recueil-de-la-diversite-des-habits/

SCENE FROM THE KITHARIUNE

WOULD THAT IN CONSUMING

RACING 2024

TONIGHT I LOOKED AT MY LITERARY PRODUCTIONS (AGAIN)

REBUILDING MY STOCKPILES OF DRAGON: THE BARBARIAN AND THE CAVALIER

over the past few years, with the help of my youngest daughter I have been rebuilding my stockpile of original Dragon Magazines. I purchased two original editions for myself for Christmas this year (man the paper was thick back then), including #72. I plan to pass them on to my grandchildren, especially my grandsons.

Anyway #72 (I had it as a kid) included excellent articles on the Ancient Real World Barbarians and how to adapt them for your game, and on the Cavalier character class.

Back then Dragon magazines leaned heavily towards historical research and both articles were joys to re-read. Also even a kid I adored the Cavalier Class but by re-reading the original I also noticed that the best form of Cavalier was really the Cavalier-Paladin, the best of both sub-classes, minus the magic.

I did have a Cavalier character I played briefly as a young guy (as well as a couple of really good Cavalier NPCs and an Anti-Paladin/Assassin/Blackguard  NPC I played as DM) but now regret I never played a Cavalier-Paladin for myself.

In any case I thought some of you might enjoy this trip down memory lane as well, and yes, the early Dragon magazine did have some fantastic sub-classes and NPC classes, many by Gary Gygax himself.

MUCH OF WHAT IS PRODUCED

by independent content creators on youtube and elsewhere on the internet is far (or infinitely) better than any of the stuff produced by the “professional industries and studios.” Just saying…

PSEUDO-HISTORICITY

what I like most about this “Shorty” is its pseudo-historicity…

THE HELAECA

The Helaeca is based upon a creature I created as a teenager playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It existed in my homebrew World/Campaign Adamae and originated from the ruined High Eleven Kingdom of Pesh. At that time I did not name it, or think of it as a “type” of monster, it was an entirely unique creature. A single and lone thing, an oddity. Up until it decided to leave and become “normal” again it had lived in the middle of a desert in Pesh’s partially buried library. One day it had read all of the volumes that had survived the destruction of Pesh or had not yet crumbled to dust. After reading all the extant volumes it decided to leave and that it no longer wished to be a lich. It had already existed as a lich for nearly two millennia.

It thereafter crossed the “uncrossable desert” made its way into one of the bordering desert kingdoms and took in 3 unique “enforcers” that it helped to partially create, one of whom was his “familiar” and another was an Anti-Paladin, or “Ruined Paladin.” These it used to seek a Cure for lichdom, yet still remain immortal, and this is how it was brought into conflict with my player characters, through the Anti-Paladin (who assassinated the party’s Paladin at night). The lich later tried to recruit the party for his own ends but because they discovered the Anti-Paladin worked for him they went to war against the lich and his party, and lost, and had to flee for their lives.

Otherwise this lich is as described below. The other day I was thinking back on this and decided to turn this unique lich into a type of Lich, still exceedingly rare but now not unique, which I call the Helaeca. The name can mean either, “one skilled at the workings of hell (necromancer),” or “grave-ghost.”

THE HELAECA OR HALAECA

Helaeca (sometimes Halaeca or Laekhel or Sinlaecae – from Anglo-Saxon terms for those “skillful in working Hell” or “Hell’s curse” or “grave-ghost”)

The Helaeca a Lich/former lich with very peculiar and specific properties or traits. Sometimes a lich either regrets their decision to become a lich or grows tired of living as a lich. These liches, a small number of their kind, then seek out magical and physical disguises by which to camouflage themselves or to deceive others, leave their lairs, hide their souls in ordinary objects they keep upon themselves at all times, gain henchmen and hirelings, and move back out into the world seeking a Cure for their lichdom. Most however never seek a cure for their relative immortality. However, most shift over time from an evil alignment to one of True Neutral. This almost never, however, makes them any less dangerous.

Most Helaeca are natural allies of ghosts, spectres vampires, wraiths, and wights, yet ironically enough are opposed to undead such as mummies and zombies. Halaeca are also natural foes of Ilithid and Beholders and will attack both on sight if they feel it safe to do so.

As Halaeca disguise themselves and move back out into the world (in disguise) they come into frequent contact with others and this has the peculiar side effect of triggering latent psionic powers in them which may then, within a few years, become nearly as potent as those of an Ilithid.

Halaeca retain all of their other previous powers of a lich except their souls tend to now be stored in more mobile and vulnerable objects or creatures for easy transport. Although in some cases it would be safer to leave their souls in their original receptacles, those receptacles being unlikely to be discovered or known for what they are, the natural paranoia of the Helaeca and the fact that they desire to reunite with their soul in their own bodies once a cure is found causes them to transport their soul’s with them.

Halaeca tend to be hostile to most other living creatures but not in an obvious way preferring to maintain their disguises. Because of this hostility even if they become Neutral in alignment they still tend to attract evil companions and followers such as Anti-Paladins and Blackguard.

Helaeca, because of their unique nature will also be in possession of 3 entirely unique spells or 1 entirely unique magical item (of the DM/GMs creation) and usually these magics assist the Helaeca in their search to be free of lichdom.

An Helaeca can also have a familiar, either living or undead, which it usually also employs as a spy and to help it seek out a cure for lichdom.

Another power the Halaeca develops over time is the ability to project its soul out of its receptacle in the form of a Spectre or Ghost (his choice) with the same powers of a Spectre or Ghost. This projection can occur anywhere the Halaeca has preciously travelled and can even appear up to a decade in the past.

In these forms the projection can appear either visibly or invisibly but if the projection is killed then so is the Halaeca so often this projection is made invisibly for spying purposes. If the projection appears in the past it always appears invisibly but may be detected either magically or psionically by some.

Finally the Helaeca can create a “mulashar” which is a semi-real or proto-lifeform composed of the Helaeca’s own thoughts and magic which is then transferred into a homunculus or small simulacrum and is also used for spying and to seek a cure for lichdom. A mulashar can be sent on extended missions on its own and unsupervised and is extremely clever but can be relatively easily killed. However the creation of a mulashar and transferring it into another body is extremely taxing for the Helaeca, and so this ritual can only be conducted once every century, and even then the ritual may fail…

#gaming #roleplay #monster

SOME INTERESTING IDEAS TODAY: REAL WORLD AND GAMING AND FICTION

THE HOLE TO EVERYWHERE

Had some interesting ideas today, for both Real Life and for fiction and gaming scenarios.

The first inspired by this post: https://www.abandonedspaces.com/public/deepest-hole-discovery.html

In Real Life I’d just like to descend/spelunk/vad it.

In a fictional/gaming scenario I’d present it as an immensely deep hole with structure(s) along the inside edges like a spiral descending staircase. (no one knows who built it or by what means.) For fantasy it would be dungeons/ruins (maybe even a Reverse Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, inhabited by never before seen totally unique creatures, monsters, and beings – not all physical), for sci-fi abandoned alien complexes (the hole would be of alien origins and not dug or excavated but consumed by something), and for action/adventure/pulp it would be a deserted (or wrecked, or perhaps even partially alien) abandoned or destroyed governmental complex with special labs.

If you made it to the bottom then in fantasy you would find a portal to the Outer Planes (which runs in both directions), in sci-fi a strange anomaly or singularity (like a split off part of a Neutron star, this splinter would be called a neutrestor, than can bend dimensions – this might be how it is first detected, by the strange energy or signal emanations), or in pulp you’d find a further abandoned complex of very different designs than above. Or, would it be abandoned? Anyway in scifi and pulp you would find bizarre labs dotted around the entire hole and complex.

THE AMPLIPHON

for artwork see here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1250048736/fantasy-world-dark-tower-poster-magic

Another idea I had was the Ampliphon, that is a Wizard’s Tower (abandoned or secretly inhabited) that can rotate at the base and be pointed at different directions from the inside. When this is done it either amplifies magic found in another region of the world and/or amplifies magic at the Tower itself (sometimes it transmit magical power, sometimes it receives or “recovers magical power,” sometimes it is a transceiver or magical force) so that entirely unique magics, items, relics, spells, etc. can be obtained. You can also then, depending on how it is pointed, use the Tower to communicate over huge distances with another aligned point and at some settings allow the bending of time and/or dimension, such as to Other Planes or astrally/ethereally.

I intend to build a real Wizard’s Tower (Theurgical Tower actually) at my Oikos-Villa site but it need not rotate (but maybe it should) and of course it will not amplify or moderate magical energies but rather electromagnetic radiation and likely communications signals. I may also attach it to my Observatory or have it sitting close enough by that they are of mutual benefit to one another.

Anyway I have long dreamt of doing the same things with large high rise buildings. To create them so that they can do this secondarily to their architectural design.

As regards sci-fi and pulp such a tower would operate as being consistent with their genre, though you could blur or blend genres or even turn this idea to horror as well. As you could with the Hole, of course.

In addition to gaming scenrios and ideas for Real World projects I may turn these ideas into various genre-based short stories or use them partially or intact as scenes in oen or more of my novels…

#RealWorld #fantasy #gaming #scifi #pulp

https://www.abandonedspaces.com/public/deepest-hole-discovery.html

ARCHIMEDES’ CANNON

If Archimedes (or Da Vinci) designed and built it you know it worked. Trouble would be reload/reset times, and handling parameters. To be effective you’d need a number of cannons firing in strict rotation, and you’d need some pretty damned effective ammunition. You couldn’t beat the Romans on psychological effect alone. Almost no one ever did.

Overall, and histrionically speaking, they were the most “cool under fire” military that ever existed.

Greek scientists make successful test with replica of ancient steam cannon

Source: Xinhua| 2018-07-01 20:01:38|Editor: mmm

ATHENS, July 1 (Xinhua) — A group of Greek scientists including engineer Alexandros Oikonomidis made a successful test this weekend, firing a replica model of the ancient steam cannon designed by Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC), the ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer and inventor.

The test was carried out in a field at Koropi, a suburb of Athens. Original cannon had been used to defend the city from invading Romans (213-211 BC). The replica model was constructed four decades ago by Oikonomidis’ late colleague Yannis Sakkas.

Centuries before him, Leonardo da Vinci had also reconstructed Archimedes’ war device, according to scholars.

The steam cannon basically consists of a metal tube. One end of the tube is capped while the other is loaded with the projectile. Once the tube is heated and reaches high enough temperature, a small amount of water is injected in behind the projectile. It rapidly turns into high-pressure steam, blasting the projectile out of the barrel.

A projectile of about 6 cm diameter reached some 30 meters on Saturday, far less than the over 1,000 meters the ancient steam cannon larger in size could reach. Still the mission was accomplished.

Oikonomidis, assisted by Yorgos Sakkas, the son of the late engineer, and other Greek experts, proved once again that the design of the machine is working and simple ideas can make great difference.

“This is a replay of an experiment made by my colleague and friend Yannis Sakkas 37 years ago. He worked based on a manuscript discovered in the archives of the great inventor, engineer, mechanic, architect and artist Leonardo da Vinci,” Oikonomidis told Xinhua before the test.

“Among these archives there were three sketches depicting da Vinci’s version of the steam cannon Archimedes had invented to target the Roman ships which had gathered around Syracuse,” he said.

“He (Sakkas) wanted to prove that Archimedes’ achievements, as narrated, were not legends but the crystal clear reality,” Oikonomidis added.

Oikonomidis undertook the task of tearing apart, repairing and putting together again the 1.2 meter-long device which had been left aside in a warehouse for years.

Saturday’s experiment was carried out ahead of an exhibition on Ancient Greek warfare technology which will be hosted at the Herakleidon museum opposite the Acropolis hill from August 22, Pantelis Mitsiou, head of the museum’s marketing and communication department, told Xinhua.

“Basically we wanted to have a firing shot for educational purposes, to see how this device functioned in antiquity,” Mitsiou said.

“The idea is very simple. The aim is to create enough pressure inside the chamber so that it will blast the projectile to a distance,” he explained.

INTERESTING

Interesting, especially given the differences of the cultures…

Il DNA dei moderni Greci è strettamente affine alla Civiltà Minoica e Micenea

Di Matteo Rubboli in data Lug 6, 2018

Dai tempi di Omero, i greci hanno idealizzato i loro antenati Micenei in poemi epici e tragedie classiche che glorificano le imprese di Ulisse, del re Agamennone e di altri eroi che entravano e uscivano dal favore degli dei ellenici. Sebbene i micenei raccontati nei poemi fossero frutto della fantasia, un team di studiosi ha compiuto una serie di analisi genetiche per appurare la discendenza dei moderni Greci.

Il DNA dei moderni greci è strettamente correlato agli antichissimi Micenei e Minoici

La Civiltà Micenea si sviluppò fra il 1.600 e il 1.200 a.C. nella zona di Micene, nel Peloponneso, per poi scomparire in modo repentino e misterioso, gettando però i semi per la cultura della Grecia Classica. I Minoici erano la popolazione dell’isola di Creta, oggi così chiamati grazie al nome del mitico Re Minosse, che costituirono la civiltà cretese fra il 2.000 e il 1.450 a.C.. I Micenei, contemporanei per lungo tempo dei Minoici, erano più combattivi di questi ultimi, che invece si dedicavano al commercio, e a un certo punto, fra il 1.450 e il 1.400 a.C., li assoggettarono al proprio controllo.

Sotto, la Porta dei Leoni a Micene. Fotografia di Andrea Trepte condivisa con licenza CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikipedia:

Epicamente non furono solo i Minoici a cadere, ma anche la città di Troia in Turchia, conquistata dai Micenei

In una ricerca del 2013, l’antico DNA di 19 persone vissute fra il 2.900 e il 1.700 a.C. (fra cui 10 minoici cretesi, 4 Micenei del sito archeologico di Micene e 5 persone di altre culture fra Grecia e Turchia) è stato confrontato con quello di 30 moderni Greci e altre 334 persone vissute in antichità in tutta l’area Mediterranea ed Eurasiatica.

I risultati sono stati sorprendenti

I micenei erano strettamente legati alle popolazioni minoiche, ed entrambi dovevano 3/4 del loro DNA ai primi agricoltori che vivevano in Grecia e nell’Anatolia sud-Occidentale. Entrambe le culture avevano un DNA connesso ai coltivatori caucasici nei pressi all’odierno Iran, suggerendo che la migrazione di persone dall’est avvenne prima che i micenei si separassero dai minoici. Tutte queste popolazioni, hanno un DNA profondamente diverso da quello delle popolazioni Africane ed Egiziane dell’epoca.

Rispetto agli abitanti di Creta, i Micenei portavano un’importante differenza:

Dal 4 al 16% del loro DNA proveniva da popolazioni del Nord-Europa o della Siberia

Uno degli autori dello studio, Iosif Lazaridis, genetista delle popolazioni presso l’Università di Harvard, afferma come sia quindi chiaro che le migrazioni dalla steppa eurasiatica proseguirono sino a poco prima del periodo Miceneo, ma non raggiunsero gli abitanti di Creta.

Sotto, affresco di una danzatrice al palazzo di Cnosso:

Non a caso, minoici e micenei si assomigliano. Negli affreschi, nelle ceramiche e in genere in tutte le opere d’arte, gli artisti di entrambe le culture dipingevano persone con gli occhi scuri e i capelli scuri, sebbene le due culture parlassero e scrivessero lingue diverse (Lineare A e Lineare B). I micenei erano più militaristi, e la loro arte era caratterizzata da lance e immagini di guerra, mentre l’arte minoica non era centrata sul culto della battaglia.

Sotto, una donna raffigurata a Micene:

E i greci moderni?

La parte forse più interessante dello studio è quella che raffronta la popolazione della moderna Grecia con quella degli antichissimi Greci. Fra i Micenei, i Minoici e i Greci Moderni esistono numerosissime sovrapposizioni genetiche. Per George Stamatoyannopoulos, co-autore dello studio, la continuità fra popolazioni vissute oltre 3.500 anni fa e i Greci moderni è sorprendente.

La Grecia subì le invasioni dei Persiani, dei Romani, dei popoli Barbari, il dominio dei Veneziani e dei Turchi Ottomani

Questo suggerisce che le componenti genetiche degli antenati dei Greci erano già consolidate durante l’età del bronzo (3.500-1.200 a.C.), dopo che la migrazione dei primi agricoltori dall’Anatolia stabilì il modello per il corredo genetico dei greci e, di fatto, per molti altri popoli europei.

Pittura a Cnosso:

La conclusione di Stamatoyannopoulos è che: “Ora sappiamo che i fondatori delle prima civiltà europea avanzata erano europei. Essi erano molto simili agli europei del neolitico e molto simili ai cretesi del giorno d’oggi“.

Il prossimo obiettivo dei genetisti è riuscire a identificare le connessioni fra il misterioso popolo Ittita e i moderni abitanti dell’odierna Anatolia.

Articolo parzialmente tradotto e da Science Mag., altre fonti sono le pagine Wikipedia riguardanti la Civiltà Micenea e Minoica.

THE BLACK SARCOPHAGUS

THE MAGUS

Wyrdwend

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ANOTHER GOD AWFUL GOOD DAY – AND THE RETURN OF THE MANTICORE

The Missal

Had another God awfully (in the true sense of the term God-awe-full) good and profitable. Plus it was an enormously fun day. This has become my consistent habit.

While I traveled today I finished up my lecture series on Ancient Religion in the Mediterranean World and then listened (or re-listened, haven’t heard it since I was in my twenties) to the First disc of Return of the Manticore, which was excellent indeed.

I really, really like progressive Rock groups, especially those that derive much of their work through adaptation of ancient, art, classical, and folk music, scores, and sources, as does ELP.

Plus I was able to score several truly useful treasures today including adding to my personal library two of the works formerly held in the library of Robert Jordan (really regret never meeting him, and a real shame too since he was a fellow South Carolinian and…

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THE GOTHS AND HUNS TO THE NORSE

Rather fascinating accounts…

 

FASA

I spent many great hours in my youth wargaming Star Trek in Star Fleet Battles, plus I developed my own Star Trek role playing game to match my SFB universe. I am seriously considering purchasing this game.

THE SHIP OF A MILLION YEARS

He’s got a point… the Thesean dilemma is true of all things that maintain at least some sense of their (original) integrity, even men.

But this gives me an idea for a science-fiction short story. About a ship whose components are gradually and intentionally replaced over time by new components of the exact same shape, design, and dimensions but with vastly different and more complex capabilities.

Adaptive pre-programmed (improvable future) design is one of the basic core principles of my personal method of design and invention.

 

BREAD AND CIRCUMSTANCE

Archaeologists discover bread that predates agriculture by 4,000 years

July 16, 2018
University of Copenhagen

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One of the stone structures of the Shubayqa 1 site. The fireplace, where the bread was found, is in the middle. Credit: Alexis Pantos

At an archaeological site in northeastern Jordan, researchers have discovered the charred remains of a flatbread baked by hunter-gatherers 14,400 years ago. It is the oldest direct evidence of bread found to date, predating the advent of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The findings suggest that bread production based on wild cereals may have encouraged hunter-gatherers to cultivate cereals, and thus contributed to the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic period.

https://d-36745881212309878255.ampproject.net/1531347091169/frame.html

A team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen, University College London and University of Cambridge have analysed charred food remains from a 14,400-year-old Natufian hunter-gatherer site—a site known as Shubayqa 1 located in the Black Desert in northeastern Jordan. The results, which are published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide the earliest empirical evidence for the production of bread:

“The presence of hundreds of charred food remains in the fireplaces from Shubayqa 1 is an exceptional find, and it has given us the chance to characterize 14,000-year-old food practices. The 24 remains analysed in this study show that wild ancestors of domesticated cereals such as barley, einkorn, and oat had been ground, sieved and kneaded prior to cooking. The remains are very similar to unleavened flatbreads identified at several Neolithic and Roman sites in Europe and Turkey. So we now know that bread-like products were produced long before the development of farming. The next step is to evaluate if the production and consumption of bread influenced the emergence of plant cultivation and domestication at all,” said University of Copenhagen archaeobotanist Amaia Arranz Otaegui, who is the first author of the study.

University of Copenhagen archaeologist Tobias Richter, who led the excavations at Shubayqa 1 in Jordan, explained:

“Natufian hunter-gatherers are of particular interest to us because they lived through a transitional period when people became more sedentary and their diet began to change. Flint sickle blades as well as ground stone tools found at Natufian sites in the Levant have long led archaeologists to suspect that people had begun to exploit plants in a different and perhaps more effective way. But the flat bread found at Shubayqa 1 is the earliest evidence of bread making recovered so far, and it shows that baking was invented before we had plant cultivation. So this evidence confirms some of our ideas. Indeed, it may be that the early and extremely time-consuming production of bread based on wild cereals may have been one of the key driving forces behind the later agricultural revolution where wild cereals were cultivated to provide more convenient sources of food.”

Dr. Amaia Arranz-Otaegui and Ali Shakaiteer sampling cereals in the Shubayqa area. Credit: Joe Roe

Charred remains under the microscope

https://d-36745881212309878255.ampproject.net/1531347091169/frame.html

The charred food remains were analysed with electron microscopy at a University College London lab by Ph.D. candidate Lara Gonzalez Carratero (UCL Institute of Archaeology), who is an expert on prehistoric bread:

“The identification of ‘bread’ or other cereal-based products in archaeology is not straightforward. There has been a tendency to simplify classification without really testing it against an identification criteria. We have established a new set of criteria to identify flat bread, dough and porridge like products in the archaeological record. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy we identified the microstructures and particles of each charred food remain,” said Gonzalez Carratero.

“Bread involves labour intensive processing which includes dehusking, grinding of cereals and kneading and baking. That it was produced before farming methods suggests it was seen as special, and the desire to make more of this special food probably contributed to the decision to begin to cultivate cereals. All of this relies on new methodological developments that allow us to identify the remains of bread from very small charred fragments using high magnification,” said Professor Dorian Fuller (UCL Institute of Archaeology).

https://d-36745881212309878255.ampproject.net/1531347091169/frame.html

More information: Amaia Arranz-Otaegui el al., “Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan,” PNAS(2018). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1801071115

Provided by University of Copenhagen

Explore further: Archaeologists revise chronology of the last hunter-gatherers in the Near East

THE STAR TREK WARGAMING AND ROLEPLAYING UNIVERSE(S)

I spent a lotta time in my youth wargaming Star Fleet Battles and playing Star Trek the Roleplaying Game (or at least my own personal modifications of both). Both were superb games.

 

SUPERIOR WARFIGHTING

The soldiering superiority of the ancient technologically advanced combatant