The Villainy

Extra-Life : Support Liore!

The VillainyWe started out this year with every intention of doing Extra-Life as AggroChat.  However somewhere in the middle of all of this good intention… life happened.  At this point we have done nothing to prepare for Extra-Life and done absolutely no fundraising.  This means…  that AggroChat is not in fact doing Extra-Life this year but will be taking a rain check  in the hopes of rebooting this initiative next year.  In the meantime…  I highly suggest you support the person I am supporting for Extra-Life.  We have joked for awhile that AggroChat and Cat Context are similar enough that we should start having special “AggroCats” episodes where we jumble the cast together.  I feel like the podcast would end up feeling pretty similar.  Liore and Cat Context were so much inspiration when we decided to start AggroChat… so backing Liore in her Extra-Life is kinda like backing us!  In truth if not for Cat Context there would likely not be an AggroChat because that podcast taught me that it is perfectly okay to do a podcast with natural conversation instead of show notes and such!

It is my hope that even though I am not doing Extra-Life I can pop by on Liore’s stream and hang out a bit while she does her thing.  We even talked about potentially playing something that is all multiplayery that we can hang out and chat while doing.  I love the concept of this event, because it proves that gamers can in fact put their hearts in the right place and do amazing things for the world.  It is not in fact all about teabagging… and I was honestly shocked that was still a thing when I encountered it recently in Destiny.  Like people did that in the Quake 3 engine days… and I figured surely by now people had gotten over that “phase”.  I got off track…  anyways I highly suggest you pop by the donation page and throw a few bucks towards the cause.  I will be tuning in for as much of Liore’s stream as I can, so it should be a good time!

Favorite Weapons

Yesterday I decided to do a new sort of video for me, where I go into it with a specific topic…  you know like most youtube videos in existence.  Generally speaking YouTube is just this place where I dump backup copies of whatever I have streamed, and not something I really do intentionally.  This time around I wanted to talk a bit about the weapons I am currently using in Destiny and what I like about each of them.  So during the course of the video I go through my current arsenal:

  • Zhalo Supercell – Auto-Rifle
  • Hakke Zarinaea-D – Auto-Rifle
  • Suros DIS-43 – Scout Rifle
  • Suros Hawksaw – Pulse Rifle
  • Invective – Shotgun

I cannot fully put into words how excited I am that Xur had a Zhalo Supercell on Friday.  Other than No Time to Explain exotic… this was the weapon I wanted most.  This gun is so much fun, and more importantly it does a bunch of interesting things.  Namely it seems to be able to reach around shielded mobs when it procs.  So if you are fighting a Hive Knight or Cabal Phalanx… the procced lightning damage will still damage them even if they have the shield up.  This means this is my go to weapon for most strikes because it will simply decimate so many mobs…  and can drop the shield of annoying mobs like Knights, Captains and Harpies that have those Arc Shields.  I am really hoping that everyone who wants one of these got it this past weekend, because even though it is only 280 I was able to pour enough stuff into it to make it reasonable for most things.  Largely right now what I am lacking is weapon parts… and decent high level weapons to feed into my legendary weapons of choice.  I wish I knew the secret to getting decent drops… because I am equipping every last ounce of light I can before I start decoding, and still habitually ending up with 260-280 items that are utterly useless to me.

New Weapon

The Villainy

Traditionally my Hunter has used the hand-me-downs from my Titan as far as weapons go.  Then if I ended up really liking a weapon… I would end up stealing it from the hunter and giving it to my Titan instead.  I think the above weapon is the first time I am not going to do that.  On my Titan I already have a really capable Pulse Rifle in the form of a Hawksaw, that nicely rounds out my weapon arsenal.  If you want to hear more about it, I go into it in detail in my video above.  The other day I managed to rank up with Future War Cult that my Hunter reps… and the package handed me one of their weapons called the Villainy.  I didn’t think much about it and ultimately it took me awhile to get around to testing it out.  Yesterday during our Star Wars pen and paper session I spent a good deal of time running around in Destiny on my hunter and chewing through the backlog of bounties.  During most of that time I used this weapon, and I have to say… I am liking it.

The Villainy

If you look at the two weapons… Hawksaw and Villainy they stack up pretty closely… but I have to say in almost every possible way the Villainy is just better.  It has significantly more impact, more range, more stability…  similarly reload.  The more I look at it verses the Armory profiles for each weapon… I am guessing I simply just got a really ideal roll on my Villainy.  This is one of the things I like about this game that would end up driving others absolutely insane.  I like that two different weapons from the same family can vary so much, because it makes you feel like this weapon or that weapon are more “yours” because they may not be exactly the same as anyone else’s version of it.  My specific Villainy has Partial Refund, Perfect Balance, and Third Eye… and it is an absolute amazing weapon to use.  Part of me is hoping to get another one just to see how different they might feel.  All I know for certain is that for the time being…  this weapon is the go to for my hunter.  I also posted a picture of my hunter above just because he looks kinda bad ass right now.  I am hoping to get more pieces of the Neuroghast set… because seriously…  that name is fitting for me, and it looks pretty amazing.

 

Mystara Monday: AC1 – The Shady Dragon Inn

This week we've got a little change of pace from adventure modules. Starting in 1983 TSR published a series of 'Game Accessories' that ran the gamut from character sheets and Dungeon Master screens to collections of spells and magic items. Today we've got the first of these, AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn, written by Carl Smith.

Mystara Monday: AC1 - The Shady Dragon Inn
Adventurers in their natural habitat

As the cover advertises, this is primarily a collection of pregenerated characters for use in your campaign. 73 of the characters are humans, divided between the four human character classes and another 32 are split up between the demihuman classes (remember, this is the D&D ruleset, so dwarf, halfling, and elf are classes as well as races). Each character is presented with a name, stat block including attribute scores, alignment, level, saving throws, and hit points, height and weight, armor and weapons, spells known (if applicable), and a short biography. There's also a lineup for each character class drawn by Jim Holloway. Of note, the dwarf lineup includes two dwarf women, both of whom have short beards. So as of this product, dwarven women in Basic D&D are bearded.

Mystara Monday: AC1 - The Shady Dragon Inn
Handwritten notes courtesy of the previous owner

Characters range in level from 1 to 14, which was the limit of what the rules supported at this point. Each one only gets a paragraph of description, but that generally includes a couple of interesting personality traits or bits of history to make them stand out. For instance the dwarf Leo Leopard-Bait "hates wealthy men" and "kicks cats when he gets the chance." Zarkon the Blue "brags too much, and sometimes makes promises he cannot keep." It's enough to make each character distinct and to give a good DM something to build on when using them as NPCs.

The Shady Dragon Inn itself is also presented as a foldout map sized for use with miniatures. Handy if you plan to use the inn as a base of operations for the PCs, especially if the odd tavern brawl breaks out on occasion. A short description gives a rundown of the owner and employees (all drawn from the pregens), prices, and the general state of the inn. Again, it's fairly terse but enough to serve as a base to build on.

Finally, there are a few more characters presented here that I haven't mentioned yet, under the heading 'Special Characters.' In 1983 a licensed line of action figures hit the shelves; although the figures were marketed as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, D&D stats for them (including a few characters whose figures were never produced) are presented here. Most importantly this means we have D&D stats for the evil WARDUKE.

Mystara Monday: AC1 - The Shady Dragon Inn
WARDUKE's contract requires that WARDUKE's
name always be printed in all caps.

As far as the development of Mystara, nothing here really contributes to the setting. Some of the characters do show up as pregens in future adventure modules; I know that X6: Quagmire! is one of those. Apart from that none of them enter into the ongoing setting that I know of. The Shady Dragon Inn does make an appearance in the Tower of Doom arcade game in a town in Darokin. That's as close as it comes to being made canon in the setting.

This is an accessory I really wish I had had when I was running D&D regularly. Coming up with NPCs on the fly, especially good names for NPCs, has always given trouble so a list of ready made characters to fall back on would have been useful. There are quite a few in here that I'd love to use in a game some time in the future. 

Mystara Monday: AC1 – The Shady Dragon Inn

This week we've got a little change of pace from adventure modules. Starting in 1983 TSR published a series of 'Game Accessories' that ran the gamut from character sheets and Dungeon Master screens to collections of spells and magic items. Today we've got the first of these, AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn, written by Carl Smith.

Adventurers in their natural habitat

As the cover advertises, this is primarily a collection of pregenerated characters for use in your campaign. 73 of the characters are humans, divided between the four human character classes and another 32 are split up between the demihuman classes (remember, this is the D&D ruleset, so dwarf, halfling, and elf are classes as well as races). Each character is presented with a name, stat block including attribute scores, alignment, level, saving throws, and hit points, height and weight, armor and weapons, spells known (if applicable), and a short biography. There's also a lineup for each character class drawn by Jim Holloway. Of note, the dwarf lineup includes two dwarf women, both of whom have short beards. So as of this product, dwarven women in Basic D&D are bearded.

Handwritten notes courtesy of the previous owner

Characters range in level from 1 to 14, which was the limit of what the rules supported at this point. Each one only gets a paragraph of description, but that generally includes a couple of interesting personality traits or bits of history to make them stand out. For instance the dwarf Leo Leopard-Bait "hates wealthy men" and "kicks cats when he gets the chance." Zarkon the Blue "brags too much, and sometimes makes promises he cannot keep." It's enough to make each character distinct and to give a good DM something to build on when using them as NPCs.

The Shady Dragon Inn itself is also presented as a foldout map sized for use with miniatures. Handy if you plan to use the inn as a base of operations for the PCs, especially if the odd tavern brawl breaks out on occasion. A short description gives a rundown of the owner and employees (all drawn from the pregens), prices, and the general state of the inn. Again, it's fairly terse but enough to serve as a base to build on.

Finally, there are a few more characters presented here that I haven't mentioned yet, under the heading 'Special Characters.' In 1983 a licensed line of action figures hit the shelves; although the figures were marketed as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, D&D stats for them (including a few characters whose figures were never produced) are presented here. Most importantly this means we have D&D stats for the evil WARDUKE.

WARDUKE's contract requires that WARDUKE's
name always be printed in all caps.

As far as the development of Mystara, nothing here really contributes to the setting. Some of the characters do show up as pregens in future adventure modules; I know that X6: Quagmire! is one of those. Apart from that none of them enter into the ongoing setting that I know of. The Shady Dragon Inn does make an appearance in the Tower of Doom arcade game in a town in Darokin. That's as close as it comes to being made canon in the setting.

This is an accessory I really wish I had had when I was running D&D regularly. Coming up with NPCs on the fly, especially good names for NPCs, has always given trouble so a list of ready made characters to fall back on would have been useful. There are quite a few in here that I'd love to use in a game some time in the future. 

IntPiPoMo 2015

I’ve gone and signed up for another blogging challenge this month. IntPiPoMo is a challenge to post 50 pictures or screen shots over the month of November. This year the challenge is being hosted by Chestnut over at Gamer Girl Confessions.

I’ll be posting some big photo posts and some quick individual posts over the course of the month. Since we’re free to post any kind of picture we like, I’m going to try to use this as an excuse to post some actual photos or art in addition to screen shots. For today’s post I have a mix of art and screenshots.

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 01. Happy spoopy little trees.

I’ve been watching Bob Ross on Twitch this week along with half the internet. It got me motivated to follow along a little bit and try my hand at some digital paintings.

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 02. Big strong mountains.

I’m hoping this urge to “paint” sticks around for a while. I’ve been enjoying seeing what I can do in a half hour or so.

As for screenies, I’ve got a quick trip through what I’ve been up to on my alts.

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 03. Quiet Downs.

I’ve tried to send a few more alts through Quiet Downs before it disappears. Unfortunately it is quite difficult for low level characters. I did get this cute screen shot of my aurin wearing the cultist garb though!

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 04. Cultist Aurin.

My granok medic did some of the Drusera instances this weekend. I love the colors and the Eldan architecture.

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 05. Alpha Sanctum ceiling.

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 06. Genesis chamber.

Finally my mordesh medic on Entity-2 is making her way through Farside. I really like the colors on this one, even if this area of the zone is probably my least favorite. I can’t wait to get her out onto the moon’s surface!

IntPiPoMo 2015

IntPiPoMo 07. Desert on the moon.

That’s it for today! I look forward to sharing my pics over the course of the month, and hopefully seeing what everyone else posts too.


IntPiPoMo 2015