Tentagil's Realm

The Avengers

tentagil — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:52:58 +0000

The Avengers opened in US theaters this past Friday, if you haven’t seen it then I highly recommend that you do and soon. It is possibly the best movie action of the year, and without a doubt the best comic book movie of all time, and the longer you wait the better the chances that it will be spoiled for you by all the fan boys gushing about it nonstop. I will attempt to avoid that with this review, the spoilers I mean, the gushing like a school girl I can do nothing about.

Marvel has been building up to this event ever since 2008′s Iron Man. With that little film, and the Nick Fury teaser at its end, they began building the shared movie universe necessary to make The Avengers happen. Its amazing the amount of detail and planning that has gone into not just one franchise series, but five, each of which has had its share of big name actors and directors involved, all of which could have derailed and destroyed the entire house of cards. Instead Marvel has had a string of hits that has culminated in an explosive extravaganza of awesome.

If you can’t tell I loved it, now let’s really talk about why.

The basic plot should be fairly obvious if you’ve watched the previous films and the trailers. That magic cube from Captain America is back, and Loki wants it to bring an invading army of hostile aliens to conquer the Earth. Naturally Nick Fury and SHIELD don’t want that, so they bring together the volatile cocktail that will become The Avengers. In classic comic book style you have some hero on hero combat, plenty of huge explosions, tons of plot twists, and at the end a massive battle between gods, aliens, and heroes. All to decide the fate of the planet

One of the most important things to any movie is casting, and from day one of this experiment Marvel has scored big every time. Thankfully almost all of those excellent choices return for this outing. The only noticeable difference is that the original Hulk, Edward Norton, didn’t show up this time around, I’m not sure what problems or conflicts he and Marvel may have had, but I think he may regret not making this film. Though I had thought he was the best Banner ever, I’m afraid he’s been dethroned by a guy I had barely noticed before. Mark Ruffalo is an A+ actor, but he’s also been more of a dramatic and romantic comedy kind of guy so I never even thought of him as an action hero, but then that is probably why it works so well. Banner is after all the outsider, it’s the Hulk that does the action, both heroic and destructive, and in both roles he manages to steal the show every time he’s on camera. Everyone else, all of whom have had at least one previous outing in their roles, slipped into their characters effortlessly and the chemistry between them all was excellent. In fact I couldn’t point to a single weak link.

The special effects are, as expected, amazing. You really wouldn’t expect anything less at this point, after all for most of them Marvel has had a few tries to get them right before this. The Hulk especially looks fantastic, the motion capture software they used means you can really see Ruffalo’s face in the big guy and the character is the closest to the comics that I think we’ve ever seen him. I also loved how they made Hawkeye work. They could have just given him a quiver with a bunch of different arrows, instead he has a very sweet system that helps the character work with all the other heroes. For me though the most amazing scene, special effects wise, involved SHIELD’s base. You’ll know it when you see it. Overall the movie is a true summer spectacle, and I doubt anything else this summer, or for a while even, is going to match it.

Joss Whedon has done what many thought was impossible, he has made not only a good, but an amazing Avengers film. An A list cast, amazing special effects, and a story that is true to the comics while also working perfectly on film. As I said at the beginning you had better see this flick before its ruined for you, because people are going to be talking about it and spoilers are going to be hard to avoid. You won’t be disappointed.

Blood on the Sand: Ch 32 – Testing the Elements

tentagil — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:29:15 +0000

T’Chai the Thri’Kreen Monk played by Lars
Nikelos the Human Swordmage played by Chris H
Brogan the Half-Elf Ardent played by Jason
Taith the Mul Barbarian played by Jessica
Buerna Villatra the Teifling Warlord/Artificer played by Greg

The party regrouped this session, and we began to delve into our fearless barbarian’s past. Jessica, Taith’s player, has been a great roleplayer from the beginning, but as this is only the second campaign she has ever played in, and the first character she ever created, she wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do back when we started. So where someone like me tends to develope a fairly deep background from the start, she has been going with a more organic route with the character’s depth being filled in as she plays her.

In an effort to encourage more background from her I started dropping notes and hints at a past a few months ago, and since she was going to be absent last session I gave her a tasking to come up with a brief history for her character that I could work with. I figured by now she knew her girl well enough to know not only where she was going but also where she came from. What resulted was a session with a great deal of deep RP from everyone involved.

The session started with the bulk of the group joining a caravan enroute to Tyr upon which Taith and her recently rediscovered mother were traveling. Soon enough the caravan was attacked by bandits and while the party was defending it a group of Muls attacked the bandits from behind, saving the caravan and then demanding its wagons in payment. These Muls it turned out were members of Taith’s tribe, all of which she had thought lost when she was captured and enslaved as a child.

The party eventually negotiated half the wagons away to avoid having to fight Taith’s family left after she refused to head off with her mother and brother for some training that she refused to speak off. Soon enough they were caught in a massive sandstorm, one sparked by primal spirits. Playing off the fact that Jessica has had amazing luck rolling untrained arcana checks she decided that Taith’s tribe had a strong connection to primal spirits. One that her experience with Defilers and dark magic has lead her to dread and see as evil. However having once been touched by the spirits, and now having had the knowledge of that past refreshed in her mind by finding her mother, I decided that her connection with the spirits would start to reassert itself.

Trapped by the storm a horde of sand sprites clung to her in fear of the wind elemental raging within the storm, alot of fun was had as she tried to deal with and then communicate with the spirits, who I gave a personality somewhat like scared puppies. That was followed by her letting some rage out on the wind elemental, causing it to leave the caravan in peace, and drawing the curiosity of her fellow party members.

Now along with all this great RP I had set up a little dungeon with lots of puzzles, a path that the party had completely stepped aside much to my chagrin. But in trying to be a good DM I let them go their way and tried to keep the story jsut ahead of them. They had decided it was time to head to Tyr and deal with Kalak. Arriving before the city they made camp and started trying to figure out how to enter the city undetected. At this point Villa came to my rescue by digging out the metal ring from last session.

The ring is an artifact capable of travel through time and space as they already learned. And it can be controlled, they just haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Once again I allowed them to roll some arcana checks to activate it, and let them look in on Rhotan Vor’s office. However much like last time they didn’t bother doing any other checking before trying to step through it. I won’t go into the full mechanics of how I have it working but since they jsut stepped through I had the primal energies around Taith kick in and redirect the party back to my dungeon. A little railroady perhaps, but I have to have my fun too.

The dungeon in question was an elemental temple, designed to allow communion with the spirits. However for those untrained and unprepared it also acted as a test and trap. Each of my players ended up in a trap like puzzle relating to the four elements which acted as the keys to a final portal which they unlocked at sessions end but did not enter.

The next session should have some interesting choices for Taith, and hopefully her player will enjoy exploring them. Oddly enough this little exercise has also finally prompted the player of our favorite man with a mysterious past, Buerna Villatra, to start talking to me about his backstory and his desire to explore it a bit. So assuming he answers some of the questions I’ve sent him we will get to delve into his history soon enough as well. All of which is great since I was worried I’d have to make up some padding to get the party to level nine and prepare them for what is likely to be the grand finale of this heroic tier campaign. Instead they are finally throwing me some hooks to work with to shape the world.

Max Payne Mobile

tentagil — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:32:55 +0000

Back in 2001 a little company called Remedy Entertainment released a gamed called Max Payne. The noir story of a undercover cop on the run is most famous for bringing the bullet-time feature to video games. As a fan of pulp and noir it was a favorite of mine back in the day, with the sequel being even better. With the third on its way Rockstar has released a new port of the game, this time to all iOS platforms.

The game is an over the shoulder perspective action shooter with the only real gimmick being the bullet time which allows you to slow down the action for a few moments. Most of these ports of old PC games tend to suffer from the transition to touch controls, but in this case I think it works incredibly well. To make up for the lack of fine control the mouse gave in aiming they have built in a fairly accurate auto aiming system. And movement around the screen is done by virtual analog sticks that appear where ever you place your fingers to minimize the amount of HUD visible at any one time. Jumping, firing your gun, and bullet time are activated through a set of permanent buttons which can be repositioned to you preference, and context sensitive buttons appear when needed to use or activate different switches and items. It’s a fairly intuitive control system that I found very natural and very easy to use.

Graphically the game hasn’t had any changed from its original form, and though it looked good in 2001, it is still a decade old game and the graphics haven’t aged the best. The character models especially are rough as they have far fewer polygons then modern models, the faces in particular are simply a photo mapped onto a flat. However they still crumple realistically when you shoot them down, and the leaps and rolls max makes still have that Hong Kong action movie flair. There are definitely better looking games on the app store, but few of them are as cheap as the $2.99 this one goes for.

Honestly I don’t think most of them have the same level of storytelling either. The Viking themed noir tale of betrayal, revenge, and redemption may seem a little cliché, but its well told and well paced. Voiceovers fill in pieces of the story as you move through the levels, and in between them graphic novel style comic panels fill the place of traditional cut scenes. The entire story is told in a flashback as well which adds to the pulpy noir feeling of everything.

As a fan of the series, and very hopefully the sequel gets released this way as well, I am going to recommend this one. However I want to caveat that by saying that if you are going to play it do so on the iPad. Though it technically works on the 3Gs and newer iPhone’s the small screen really makes seeing the action hard when you’re trying to control it. The game is also soon to be released on the Android market for those who prefer that platform. Go get it ladies and gents, its $2.99 for a great game.

The iPad and the Screen Protector Fiasco

tentagil — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:05:23 +0000

So last Friday I spent $182.98 on a new toy. Less than two hundred dollars kids, that’s how much my shiny new iPad cost me. How you ask? Don’t worry, no get rich quick schemes or evil spam bot crap here, I merely cashed in all my credit card and best buy reward points all at once. I ended up with a stack of pages, each worth between fifty and a hundred dollars. Essentially monopoly money that was going to get me a tablet on the cheap. To aid in that quest I opted for the 32gb wifi version over its more expensive counterparts. I didn’t want to pay for another data plan, and though I may end up regretting it, I saw no need for 64 gb of space.

Once I had made my choice the sales clerk scanned it and rang up a nice tidy sum of money that would have made my stomach roll a little had I actually had to pay it. Thankfully I didn’t, and it was hilarious handing all the gift certificate printouts to the guy, especially when they wouldn’t scan and he had to type them all in by hand. I at least waited till I was out of the store before laughing about it, I’m pretty sure he just attributed my giant smile to an Apple fan boy woody. Karma got me back for it though.

If you buy no other accessory for your tablet, regardless of brand, you must get a screen protector. These things are too expensive, and those screens to sensitive, to be lugging them around without some extra protection. I of course picked up a screen protector with my purchase, but when asked if I wanted it installed I declined. I mean I’d put one on my phone a few years ago with no problem, I figured the tablet should be just as easy right. Wrong. Learn from me and pay the fifth teen dollars.

After an hour of attempting and failing to get the damn thing on straight I decided I would live with it crooked. This of course was to be the least of my worries. As the solution they give you to aid in keeping the plastic clean and easy to install dried I realized that I had somehow gotten half a dog worth of hair between the screen and the protector. It looked like I had squashed a hamster against the screen. This led to me pulling the whole thing off, cleaning everything, and trying to start from scratch. Another half hour went by when my frustration finally resulted in my actually tearing the supposedly tear proof plastic with a scream of rage.

The next day the cute Geek Squad girl had the thing installed and looking damn near perfect in under ten minutes. Granted she has more practice, but she also did it while holding a conversation with me and barely looking at the damn thing. Then because she was nice, and apparently had nothing else to do at that particular point, she spent an extra ten minutes making sure every little air bubble was taken care of and double checking things. I thus walked out of the store a much happier person, though having spent more money than necessary because of my DIY attitude when it comes to tech gadgets.

Other than that little fiasco though I am infinitely happy with the iPad. You might ask why I went Apple instead of a droid option, and there are actually a few reasons. The first is that I’m an iPhone user so the interface is second nature to me at this point. Plus many of the apps I have on my 3GS work as well on the bigger screen of the tablet as they do on my phone. So that familiarity and savings from not having to buy all new apps was nice.

The second thing is that the only droids on the market with the same level of features and overall quality are actually more expensive then the iPad. It’s not a huge difference, maybe a hunderd dollars on the highest priced models, and some might argue that the more open nature of Android is worth that cost, but for me I’d rather simple reliability, over some perceived sense of freedom. The Android market has already started to see some crack downs on content so that freedom is being whittled away, and the lack of a vetting or certification system means that you have far more bad apps then good and very few ways to really tell the difference till you’ve bought and installed them. The Apple app store isn’t perfect, but I find it much easier to find what I’m looking for.

Thirdly I think Apple really nailed the size and form factor for an all around tablet. See I almost got a Kindle FIre since I figured most of my tablet use would be gaming and reading with some web surfing, all things it does extremely well, and for a third of the price. But one of the reasons I wanted a tablet in the first place was the sheer number of PDFs I use. I read a ton of them both from my online classes and from cheaper e-books and RPG books I’ve downloaded. The Kindle and other smaller form factor tablets are fine for most books, but anything with charts, graphs, or detailed pictures are a real pain to look at because of how small they have to be to display on the screen. Meanwhile they look amazing on the new iPad’s retina display, and all that screen real estate makes sure you can see all the details and charts are very easy to read. I even have the PDF of my paintball marker on their and the diagrams of it disassembled look great.

Different people are of course going to have different needs, and I honestly can’t say that I’d recommend the iPad to everyone over anything else. You have to look at what you want and need and go from thier. Also as much as I’m loving this thing I have to say that tablets are still very much a niche market. The average person has no real need for one. A smart phone will handle ninety percent of what most people would use one for, and a laptop will handle the rest. Plus the average price is still far too high, especially in this economy. If you can cash in on something like I did, or get a really good deal I say go for it, but the average consumer is probably better off skipping this little tech toy.

Draw Something and Tiny Towers

tentagil — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:28:10 +0000

This is going to be a double review for a pair of mobile games that have been devouring my time of late. Tiny Tower and Draw Something. First let’s get the latter out of the way.

Draw Something is essentially a Pictionary version of Words with Friends. You and a buddy take turns drawing something from a list of words and trying to guess the other guys drawing. Sounds simple, and you would think it would get rather boring quick, but for some reason this game has grabbed a hold of my soul.

The fun of the game really has less to do with its actual goal then with the laughter that ensues from seeing the crap your buddies draw in their attempts to depict the word they chose. I know that my ridiculous stick figures have given my friends multiple WTF moments. The internet is full of images from people with amazing skills in the game, but I am not one of them. It is also great fun to prank your buddy with absurd or simply disturbing images prior to actually drawing the word you chose.

The game is free with advertisements or .99 cents if you’d like to go advertisement free. A real steal for the fun that can be had with the game.

The second of my current time stealers is Tiny Tower. This one is a strange little sim style game where you are the owner of an ever growing skyscraper which you fill with apartments and businesses. These generate the money that you in turn use to add more floors and more businesses. Again it’s a very simple concept, and one that should feel redundant and boring fairly quickly.

As you build businesses you then have to stock them. Each item takes a certain amount of time to stock and you find yourself using a fair bit of strategy to insure your businesses always have something ready to sell. They fact that they stock in real time allows you to set things up then walk away from a while, which is great for a casual game like this. At the same time the time factor gives the game a deeper depth then I would have expected from something like this. You also have to factor in the happiness of your towers residents, the proper use of VIP guests, who visit and add various bonuses and possible complications, and balance the spending of your money and the tower bucks which allow you to purchase upgrades or speed the stocking process.

The game can get somewhat frantic as you progress and really hooked me. The game has a great 8-bit art style and midi soundtrack which gives it alot of charm for an old school gamer like me as well. The fact that its free was nice as well.

Highly recommend both of these titles to anyone out there with a mobile device in need of some time killers. Such make sure you don’t let them eat up time you actually need.

Hunger Games

tentagil — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:18:59 +0000

So a week or so ago my friends talked me into going to see this flick. Now since I had never read the books, and since all the hype for it was equating it with Twilight, I likely would have never seen it on my own. Overall I thought it was an enjoyable film, though I don’t think it would have made quite the box office splash it did had it not had a bestselling book behind it, and Twilight paving the cinematic way.

As I mentioned I haven’t read the books so I can’t talk to how close they got to the written page. Most of my friends and others I have talked to said the movie sticks pretty close to the source which is usually nice to see. A downside of this is that the thirty to forty-five minutes of the movie are incredibly slow. It’s all exposition and story setup, which is fine in a book, but for a movie it makes the uninitiated such as me rather bored until things really start clicking together and moving along. The payoff is great once it gets rolling, but the start is going to leave those with no frame of reference wondering what all the hype is about. The basic plot for those not in the know involves a twisted reality show in which 24 children fight to the death. Punishment by a powerful government to the cities that had tried and failed to rebel against it.

I found the casting and acting to be pretty decent. You have a few well known character actors and plenty of relatively unknowns, which is expected since the majority of the cast are supposed to be children. As I had purposefully avoided any trailers or anything due to the Twilight comparisons I was pleasantly surprised to see the likes of Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson appear on screen, and Stanley Tucci was excellent as always. Really though all of them were mere supporting actors. Jennifer Lawrence plays the real star of the film and she carried the whole thing really well. Since this is the first book in a trilogy, and since its broken records, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of her in this role and many others.

The movie looked great, not just on the special effects front, but the design and costume work was excellent. The shift between the worn down settlements and the corrupt Capitol is distinct and you get a real feel for just how different these two groups of people are. Now one area that I have a slight complaint about is the combat. This is a movie where children are killing each other, which is a little hard to sell to a movie going public, and as its aimed at young teens they wanted a PG-13 rating. So the majority of the combat is done with a shaky cam type setup where you see bodies flying and blood spurting, but its all those disjointed and chaotic you can’t really connect the two. It works, but it left me a little put off after how smooth and clean everything else was.

Another problem I had, and this is an issue with most book to movie translations, was that there were a few scenes that were obviously there merely to throw some plot exposition at the audience to make sure those who hadn’t read the books knew what was going on. Though helpful in understand the movie, they didn’t always flow the best. There were also at least two points at which I was left confused by a lack of understanding about exactly what was and wasn’t possible in the world of the movie technology wise. Both take place within the “arena” the children fight in and I don’t want to give any spoilers. My friends helped explain things after the movie, but they shouldn’t have had too. There were a few other lines and scenes that probably would have made more sense in the context from having read the book, but overall the movie is well written enough to convey the plot and keep the watcher informed.

Definitely recommend this one, and now I need to find the books. Its a really well made and enjoyable film with an interesting world that is well worth a visit, and considering the money it’s made more is on the way. Plus if you catch it at the theater there is less chance of it getting spoiled for you since nearly everyone else already has.

Blood on the Sand: Ch 31 – The Time Window

tentagil — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:09:00 +0000

T’Chai the Thri’Kreen Monk played by Lars
Nikelos the Human Swordmage played by Chris H
Brogan the Half-Elf Ardent played by Jason
Buerna Villatra the Teifling Warlord/Artificer played by Greg

Having dealt with the Druid Gal Dur and cured Brogan the party trekked back to Raam and rejoined Nikelos before setting forth once more for Tyr. Taith however vanished in Raam for reasons unknown to the party, though i do have her on a little side quest to help explain her absence. I have been trying to do this more and more to deal with those sudden disappearances when players can’t make a game. in her case it should help flesh out the back story and answer some of the questions posed by the memories and dreams I’ve been handing her lately.

In any case the rest of the party began their journey down the great road with plans to stop at Silver Springs once more, their only safe have at this point, before finalizing their plans. Some of them want to visit Alturak again and look for the missing governor, others are set to take down Kalak in Tyr. They also have some lingering questions about the possible invasion from Urik. Along the way however Brogan started looking at their inventory and realized they still had that metal ring they acquired from Wheelock’s lair.

As they hadn’t really investigated it before they decided it might be a good time to figure out what the hell it was for. I had hinted before that it was a type of window, though one they didn’t quite know how to use. As they had also found some runed scrolls at the poisoner’s lair they worked on those and figured out a little bit about the artifact. For one it had existed at least since the green age before the Sorcerer kings, a mythical time told of only in stories. The scroll spoke of special combinations of runes that would activate it and Nikelos ended up being the one to press them. Through the window an image of green fields appeared, when he reached out to touch it he disappeared.

The rest of the party soon followed, though their destination was a stone cell rather than a lush green oasis. The ring stood before them but sealed in a stone wall, across from it a large wooden door muffled the sound of some argument outside. T’Chai investigated and discovered a pair of guards dragging a prisoner down the hall, a pair of guards in full metal armor. The looks of greed in my players eyes at this revelation was hilarious. They quickly shuffled into the hall behind them and began stalking them through the fortress they had found themselves in. As the guards reached another locked door the party struck, slaying them and the man behind the door. The prisioner it turned out was known to them, after a fashion.

After a little healing from Brogan he looked at them and began cursing them. She was the blonde elven princess they had so harshly beaten when t hey were sucked into the mural’s in Orlo’s den so long ago. What they had thought was merely illusion or ghosts was something else entirely. I had been hoping get back to this plotline, it started as merely some padding to keep the party busy for a session as we moved along. It is coming back in the same vein, but at though they don’t know it yet, it will also have some impact on their current and future adventures. Time travel is a tricky thing though which is why I’ve set it up in a very controlled way.

Back to the story though, having realized they were back in this strange world and they soon came to the realization that they had moved in time and were in Kalak’s fortress. It didn’t take long for them to decide that hunting down good ole Kalak here in the past would be a good idea. Unfortunately for them he was not in residence, however two of his lieutenants were.

The party freed several other prisoners and then headed toward the lushly decorated apartments of Sacha and Wyan. They found them enjoying themselves with plenty of nubile half dressed woman and rushed in with their usually lack of caution. Wyan I designed as a massive mountain of a man. His thick layers of fat cushioning the blows of his attackers, Sacha on the other hand was a short, almost halfling sized man of quick feet and even quicker blade. Strength and agility matched against the party. Both were elites and they gave the party a decent fight, though in the end the party was triumphant. They learned that Kalak had set off to crush the city of their elven ally and then found themselves pulled back to the spot in the desert before the magical ring as the session ended.

I don’t know if they will visit that time again, but I do know that they will see results of thier actions in the current time. Really looking forward to those reveals as well.

Blood on the Sand: Ch 30 – Between a Druid and a Hard Place

tentagil — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:21:34 +0000

T’Chai the Thri’Kreen Monk played by Lars
Brogan the Half-Elf Ardent played by Jason
Taith the Mul Barbarian played by Jessica
Buerna Villatra the Teifling Warlord/Artificer played by Greg

Having taken the dive of faith into the trash shoot last session out party made their way out of the sewers with Nikelos staying behind to cover their backs (ie. giving an excuse for why he wasn’t there this session). The sewer existed out beyond the walls of Raam and the party quickly began their trek north towards the Druids grove. On the way Brogan patched the druid up and then led the party further north towards her lands. He also explained his need for a cure to her, which she seemed over eager to help with.

Along the way they Druid had them stop near one of the humanoid shaped tree which she tapped with a strange wooden dagger. From its body leaked a strange red sap that after being rubbed on her wounds healed them, though a strange scream seemed to echo from the tree. Another hint to the group that the druid wasn’t exactly a nice person. Not that they really had a choice at this point since she was likely the only person who could cure brogan and T’Chai.

Eventually they came to the Druid’s grove which though mostly made up of large date trees also had a few more of those humanoid trees and in its center the petrified tree stump that had been changed through druidic magic into an altar of sorts with stairs grown into it. The Druid, named Gal Dur, climbed to its center and beckoned Brogan to join her.

He stepped forward eagerly, ready to be cured of the curse that has been consuming him for weeks (in game time at least, its been a few months real time). When he stepped before her she slammed her dagger into his outstretched wrist and the party watched in horror as he began to scream and vines began to circle his arm, forcing a black liquid from his body. Eventually it ran clear and then blood began to drip from the strange spigot before Gal Dur yanked the dagger from his arm, leaving a strange leaf shaped scar. She then turned to T’Chai.

Now as a Thri’Kreen who sees pretty much every other creature as a possible meal anyway the Thrax curse hasn’t bothered him much. He simply sees it as an easier way to feed on his prey. So of course when beckoned by the Druid, and having seen the pain Brogan endured, he wondered whether the cure was worth it. This of course set the rather insane Gal Dur off the deep end. Determined to cure him regardless of his wishes she slammed the dagger into him and began the ritual that would turn him into one of the tree creatures populating the grove. When the rest of the party attempted to save him she called forth her minions.

The fight wasn’t all that difficult, the Druid though relatively powerful was obsessed with “saving” T’Chai from himself and thus mostly ignored the rest of the party other then trying to stop them from stopping her. Two of her tree minions attempted to grab them and a pair of earth elementals attempted to block their movements. Eventually the Druid herself took on a tree like aspect and tried to ensnare the party. In the end they knocked her out and freeded T’Chai, leaving him with a altered version of the Thrax.

I granted both T’Chai and Brogan a boon that left them with some remnant power from the Thrax curse. What other effects the cure might have had is left to be seen, but for now this side quest is ended. The party left Gal Dur unconscious, and she may return again, it’s a rare enemy they leave alive after all. Mostly likely they’ll be headed back towards Tyr now, but with this group who knows.

John Carter

tentagil — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:30:53 +0000

Under the Moons of Mars began appearing in the pulp magazine The All-Story in July of 1912. For six monthly issue Edgar Rice Burroughs introduced the American reading public to the exotic adventures of John Carter, Confederate cavalry men, Virginian, and Champion of Mars. Burroughs would go onto write eleven novels in his Barsoom saga, chronicling the life of Carter and later his children. This past weekend, a century after first making his literary debut, John Carter has finally made it to the big screen courtesy of Disney.

As a pulp fan I have been looking forward to this flick since I saw the first trailer last summer, and I was not disappointed. Alot of the so called critics have been hammering this film, and though I understand their criticisms, I think they missed the point. This is a pulp movie based on a pulp novel, it might have a big budget, but the story is pure purple prose. Its action, adventure, love and death, but it has no pretensions towards sending a message or trying to make the audience think or debate and issue. Like Burroughs’s books it is meant be an enjoyable diversion, a fantasy to thrill the audience, and I think it does that admirably.

Now the movie isn’t perfect, it has a rather slow start, something it shares with its literary parent. And like most adaptations the screenwriters kept the essence, and most of the plot, of the source but mixed things up a bit. Some of the changes I’m sure were to make the story a bit more understandable to a modern audience, others were there to take care of the long exposition that the book had pages for while the movie had mere moments. There were a few changes that I wasn’t a fan of, but overall I think they did a really good job translating the novel to the screen and they managed to pull in several elements from the later books in the series which bodes well for sequels should the movie make up for its poor opening weekend.

The special effects are suitably impressive considering the movie’s 250 million dollar price tag. Though I always pictured the Green Martians as a little more buff, I thought the look they came up with for them was very suitable. Then there was Woola, they gave him a very doglike appearance, while in the books he was specifically described as more insect like and bizarre, but seeing him zoom around with those giant puppy dog eyes and that massive tongue hanging out just made me fall in love with the big goof ball. I will say I was a little disappointed with how they portrayed the Red Martians. Instead of the red skinned humanoids of the books we got dark tans and a scattering of red tattoos. Their massive cities and air ships however looked incredible and the many battle scenes throughout the movie were very impressive. Plus they had Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris which makes up for alot. Too bad they decided the Martians should where clothes in the movie.

The rest of the cast was pretty decent as well. I thought they filled all the primary rolls with good choices, though especially with those playing the Tharks it was impossible to know who was under the GCI. I loved Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Tars Tarkas and Samantha Morton as Sola was also excellent. I also thought Taylor Kitsch as Carter worked well, he definitely has the look and he managed the southern accent with subtly rather than the brute stereotype you so often see. My particular favorite however was Mark Strong as the villainous Matai Shang. He’s actually a character from the second and third books in the series but works really well as the overall bad guy for the film.

I think the reason the movie had such a poor opening can be directed towards the title and the marketing. John Carter is a meaningless title unless you already know the books, which is unlikely with the movies demographic. Also the trailers barely touch on the fact that the movie is taking place on Mars or that there are aliens involved, simply cutting between action shots without really giving a feel for the movie. Word of mouth has already given the movie more hype than Disney managed in months with millions of dollars.

Overall I loved the movie and I highly recommend it. Despite what the critics might say the movie is a blast and well worth the ticket price. If you want a fun action filled bit of escapism this movie delivers.

Blood on the Sand: Ch 29 – Escape to the Sewer

tentagil — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:35:04 +0000

For the first time in months the entire group actually showed up, which was important considering this entire side quest hinges on two of them. Unfortunately things didn’t go nearly as far as I would have liked due to a late start and an early finish. Regardless it was an interesting session that taught me a bit and that I think the players enjoyed.

When last we left the group they had conned their way into Raam’s prison, defeated the templar Ianarys, and rescued the druid they believed could reverse the Thrax curse. Of course a rescue is only complete after the escape, and this entire session was focused on that escape.

Having thrown the druid’s unconscious form over T’Chai’s shoulder they began the mad dash through the prison to freedom. I once again pulled out the tiles from the Castle Ravenloft board game for this session in order to create a random dungeon for the party to run through. I find that I really like this technique since it keeps the map a surprise for everyone and the anticipation of flipping over each tile feel adds to the vibe at the table. It also keeps the one rules lawyer in my group from arguing with me about why he can’t see more of the map and wanting to know the specifications of every twist and turn.

This session was also ran as a single long encounter, I figured that since the party was being chased they wouldn’t have any time to stop and rest. As they moved through the map, flipping tiles as they reached the end of each panel, I also sent several waves of monsters at them. Mostly it was guard dogs that kept harrying them, and then they accidentally stumbled into a guard room setting off a nice little fight. They were actually almost to the exit when Brogan decided that they needed to clean the map before leaving so as to not waste the daily he had popped at the end of the last fight. Something that nearly got him killed and annoyed the group a bit. Those are the breaks of meta gaming I suppose.

We ended with the party jumping into a garbage shoot Star Wars style as more guards headed their way. Once again our party has landed in the sewers beneath a prison, thankfully there aren’t any gnomes below Raam, at least not that they have run into yet.

We ended as the party was getting themselves cleaned up and they decided that now would be a good time to rest. Unfortunately they also decided it was time to end for the night, and since we started about an hour and a half late we only had about a two and a half hour session. This Thrax thing is dragging on longer then I intended, but hopefully we will wrap it up next session and the party can level up to 8 as we start the home stretch on this campaign.