«Nul ne vit jamais au-dessus de la mêlée : ne pas choisir est un choix, ne pas trancher un geste, ne pas prendre position un parti. Nul jamais n’écrit le cœur sec, scribe sans affects, greffier hors les murs, mains propres et conscience claire de l’humaniste : la neutralité est l’autre nom de la collaboration».
Welcome to Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. If you were expecting a fun one, you’re not getting one! This is a story of grief, betrayal, loss, and the panic of the coming of a new age, Calamity....
00:16:32 Historic Crit Moment The first covert comms of “Wingspan” (Cerrit) and “Talon” (his son, Kir) discussing how “Egghead” (Cerrit’s daughter, Maya) is planning on going out past her curfew. He also mentions “Cleareye” (Cerrit’s wife, Wrayne).
00:30:52 Brennan:“You want me to activate The Taxmen?” (12’ tall steel constructs)
00:37:44 Cerrit:“Guard your faces, don’t give anything away with your expressions.”
Sam:(gestures)“My face turns into your face.”
Cerrit:“Right down to the teeth. God it’s uncanny.”
Aabria:“You have teeth?!”
Travis:"No, I don’t have any teeth."
01:04:56 Lore Drop Toramunda was originally founded by "the Gau Drashari, an ancient order of druids that tended to the holy sites of the history of Toramunda, or actually the mountain itself, Mount Ygora, the ancestral mountain, where the Dawnfather and the Wildmother defeated two of the greatest primordials of Domunas, back during The Schism and sealed them away under the earth and was part of the ending battles of The Schism. It was a place where elemental magic permeated througout, which the druids tended to. Some of the earliest Gau Drashari were genasi. Also, that elemental permeation is what attracted a lot of wizards here after Toramunda was founded. When the wizards came and said, ‘Hey, can we take the top half of this mountain and have a cool flying city?’ the original druids were like, ‘No. You may not.’ and The Replenishment was the concession of those wizards. In the Age of Arcanum, The Replenishment is sold by the archmages of Avalir as being a great act of charity.
It’s not a great act of charity.
It was an obligation to the Druids of Toramunda, something that they said they would do justify taking the top of the mountain. The Replenishment does renew the crops and bring back magic. There were also, in your knowledge, a bunch of important things the druids wanted to do with that magic. Now, cynical minds might say, that’s the druids cut for letting the mountain go. But the druids also said that there were really important things they wanted to do with that magic. So, the Drashari Pact, also known as the Pact of Crown and Throne, right? Was the original agreement between the wizards and the Druids. Crown and Throne became Avalir, the City of Crowns, and Cathmoira, the City of Thrones. It was all about how they would apportion this magic.
You’ve been building out the Etheric Net for a long time. 25% of the city’s Ether is spoken for from that pact. You’ve got 75% to play with, 25% has to go to these things that were part of the original agreements. So, the reason you don’t know a lot about the Arboreal Calix is that that’s your utility spell. You’ve just always needed to send a certain percentage of stuff there. But, when you look at it, you see that that Calix alone is more than 50% of the tithe. That engine is-- This one engine that you know doesn’t do anything that you know to be useful takes up a double digit percentage of your entire city’re reserves of magic. As you’re looking at the energy structure, you see that it flared up when you did this thing with your Leywright. It sucked up a lot of energy as you did that. The last thing I’ll say is, when you look for an instruction manual…there is none. You’re (Laerryn) looking through your own spell book, your records preserved here in crystal memory.
Everything built by mages comes with incredibly explocit and precise detail about what they were thinking, why they built it,
This one says, ‘This is the amount of energy that you must apportion to the Arboreal Calix during The Replenishment.’ End of list.”
01:12:00 Brennan:“This is the first Replenishment after the ascension of the Raven Queen.”
Sam:"I need yarn. I need thumbtacks…"
01:21:30 Nydus comes in like a wrecking ball.
01:22:53 Nydus’ handprint sunburn and the internal soundtrack while witnessing a tear between his and the Celestial Plane.
Lou:"Oh shit, that’s bright."
01:26:33 “Polly want a a cracker?”
Cerrit:"Excuse me!..do… do you have a cracker?"
01:41:06 Lore Drop You (Patia) remember the first time someone explained Apogee Solstices to you. It’s a woman that you knew as a child. You don’t remember her name anymore because nobody does. (implying The Raven Queen’s mortal name)"
01:44:48 Zerxus:“We know that it has to do with The Betrayers”
Best name for a CR-themed Doom Metal band?
01:52:30 Infernal Vocabulary: K’nauth: (‘nowth) noun. synonym: puppet: *A follower that does not need magical controls to obey."
01:56:10 Lore Drop You live in an age (Age of Arcanum), where the Prime Dieties walk Exandria openly. The Schism is the myth following the creation. You know there was a time in which the Prime Dieties, in a world of strife and chaos, sought to give divine magic to their childre, to mortals, and the Primordials that had existed in the world, the elemental Titans that had existed in the world prior to the arrival of the Dieties, who, before The Scheism, there was not a distinction Prime Diety and Betrayer. No “betrayal” had happened. There were just the gods and the Primordials. The gods fractured when divine magic was granted to mortals. The Primordials rose up to correct that imbalance, and the Betrayers joined the Primordials against the cause of mortals.
The Prime Dieties were so thorough in sealing the Betrayer Gods away that the Betrayer Gods were not able to grant spells.The worship of the Betrayer Gods was completely fruitless.
02:02:22 Loquatius does an insight check on THE WORLD.
02:07:25 Dean Lycretia Hollow, Necromancy Archmage of the Ring of Silver, is implicated in Vespin Chloras’ plot. The same one who both invited Purvan Suul to the gala, and openly mocked him upon arrival.
02:11:54 Le Epic Troll from Brennan.
INTERMISSION
02:28:11 Patia:“Follow me.”
Magda:"Yep."
02:31:02 Magister Cormorant is implicated in the plot of Vespin Chloras.
02:32:32 Looks like Loquatius and Zerxus saved Purvan Suul from being assassinated by an invisible necromancer.
02:36:40 Marisha saying “Magister 'cum’orant” skeets past unnoticed.
02:42:00 Fireflies effect in the background (nothing to do with the story, just thought it was neat!)
02:44:53 Elena Tuvaris, the reporter who wrote the most on Vespin Chloras. “It goes against every virtue of this age to believe that somethig that is achievable by one is not, at least in theory, achievable by all.” - V.C.
02:47:22 Loras, of The Weaver’s Mask, is implicated in the plot of Vespin Chloras.
Lou:"And he was so cool!"
02:49:55 “The City of Crowns bears the Tree of Names.” (The Arboreal Calix)
03:01:29 Sam’s erotic interpretive dance celebrating his deception win over Travis’ investigation check.
03:06:19 Laerryn:"I can do you one better."
03:06:33 Fan Art Moment Massive Spell Knight statue under the control of Laerryn’s Summon Construct spell destroying a doorway. "We answer the call of the Architect."
03:07:25 Laerryn:“Show yourself.”
Brennan:“Roll initiative.”
(arrival of Battle Map! of Magister Cormorant’s office)
03:22:20 Magister Cormorant is dealt with and Brennan takes one last sad look at the map he worked on so long with Matt, already used up.
03:28:22 Fan Art Moment The Letter from the Head Druid of the Gau Drashari in silver ink on birch bark (summarized):
Honorable Magister, your assurances are taken in the most generous spirit possible. I do not distrust you, the person, for all people are children of Exandria. But what I distrust is enchantment. the enchantment of a people and of their ways.
The wizards of Avalir have proven time and again that they do not see limitation. They do not see the limitation of a city that will be born aloft into the sky, nor do they see risk. I wish that I could trust you. I wish that my order could trust you. I wish that we could, in good faith, tell you of the tree’s purpose. Sorrow fills my heart, for even if you kept your word, the wizard behind you, if they knew the nature of the tree, I can only imagine, would see all that they could do With It, and not what they could For It.
I implore you. The endless skies of Exandria are yours. The wonders of your imagination are your only master. Please, simply tend for this tree and do not ask again. We cannot trust you with its secrets.
03:31:17 Lore Drop Letter dated to approximately the same time the Arboreal Calix was constructed around the Tree of Names. "You see records here that, after the Matron’s ascension, basically, the city landed a year after that and the druids all came aboard Avalir, and said:“We need to update.”
"You see there’s an ancient piece of ritual about the Emperor Rau’shan, and the Empress Ka’Mort, which are the Primordials that the Dawnfather and the Wildmother defeated at Mount Ygora and sealed away."
03:35:16 Fan Art Moment Construct thinking happy thoughts for being the one chosen to be awakened while carrying the crushed remains of the Magister away. “We did it, baby. Yes! Wizard woke me up!”
Laerryn:“I’m gonna call him Scrabbles.”
Construct:"I have been named."
04:02:55 Lore Drop Zerxus and the Betrayer God
04:30:42 "The stars are leaving us. Our hands cannot reach the limbs of the tree, can no longer scribe the name of our deliverance. We will soon be as broken as our promises. Avalir shall fall. All shall fall. And from our folly will the hands that forge the world banish themselves from the broken things they have made."
04:34:37 The Helmswoman of Avalir is killed mid-conversation with Laerryn.
Stèle funéraire dite du « scribe ». Le personnage est vêtu d’un manteau à capuchon et il tient un ensemble de 4 tablettes tenues par des lanières et un étui à stylets (calcaire, IIe-IIIe s.). Retrouvée à Dijon, elle est exposée au musée archéologique de la ville.
Let’s go through Das Schwarze Auge adventure B13 Der Streuner Soll Sterben (The Vagrant Shall Die)
It has the secondary title Das Blutgericht von Thalusa (The Blood Court of Thalusa) which is one of the few times when both titles are equally evocative.
Ok, let me preface this: I utterly adore this scenario, even though it has it’s problems (dare I say it? some parts are quite racist). But I would say this is where Ulrich Kiesow shows real promise.
Now at this point MOST (but not all) of the DSA scenarios were written by him, or in cooperation with him. This included A1 which I really liked, and A2 which I found at least ok. But it also included the whole rest of the scenarios which contain some bad railroads, even if their premise might be good.
But this one is one where I really see what he is going for. This is intentionally pulpy, in the way that 19th ct. adventure stories were.
Unfortunately this includes some rather unfortunate tropes that come with such stories. For one the setting is quasi-oriental. And of course it involves arranged marriages, beheadings at the drop of a stone, and an evil looking coal black executioner.
On the other there really aren’t any really bad people involved. The executioner just happens to be coal black from a magical accident and is otherwise doing his job, and the one actual antagonist is coded as German, and even he has reasons to behave like he does.
Lots of bad decisions that come with the choice of setting and NPCs. I guess for the 80s it was fair for its day, but even in the 90s I remember this module as being discussed as “the racist one”.
But anyway, the plot concerns Prince Selo of Khunchom who had the really bad idea to have just a small peek at his fiancée Shenny of Thalusa. [that name tho…]
You see it’s tradition in their culture that enfianced people are not to see each other until the marriage rites are concluded. Which is all fine for Selo, except he HAS seen her parents and now fears his future wife might take after either of them.
So he makes the plan of… sneaking into the palace of Thalusa and having a look at her.
And if it’s really bad, can a life as a vagrant on the roads of Aventuria be quite so bad?
Yes, Prince Selo is an idiot.
In any case he even is successful in sneaking in, and quite enamored with Princess Shenny.
And Princess Shenny for her side is quite enamored with that handsome stranger she just encountered.
Unfortunately while they are both very enthusiastically consenting with each other (at least that discussion we don’t have to touch), he is captured by the guards and immediately sentenced to death by his prospective father in law.
Well, you should accept it, the Prince’s father promises you riches if you manage to make it to Thalusa in time with a document of his hand that can rescue his son.
Unfortunately Thalusa is about 300km away, easily a 10 day trip over land, and the execution is set for in 14 days.
And even if you get there on time with the document (which is not a given), and hand it to the wrong person, then you are back at square one. Well, square whatever Thalusa is in.
The heroes are given the choice of going by sea, which might shorten the journey to three days, but has a problem: it’s a the stormy season right now, and it might make things worse. A single ship is willing to make the passage on the off-chance of arriving in one part at their destination to make a killing selling hard liquor.
(I realized afterwards that I am not quite sure which season it is supposed to be, the text is talking about Frühjahr being a storm season in that part, so the early year. In our world this commonly would be spring. But in Aventuria the early year is autumn. But was this already established at that point? When does this actually take place?)
Despite Kiesow’s known fondness for railroads he does not actually go for them here. With a bit luck of the dice the PCs can indeed reach the halfway point, after which the storms become no problem anymore. It’s not likely, but it’s possible.
https://gmkeros.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/b13game.pngThen they are attacked by pirates though. Which also can be circumnavigated with proper care (the scenario contains a specifically designed boardgame here), and even if they board your ship they only will steal the document.
(they are not actually real pirates)
If luck is not with them, or if they decide to go there from the beginning, they end up having to go by land. But at least they might have gained a day or two.
This would be the place where a DnD scenario would pull out the hexmap. And we saw a hexmap in B8 already. Kiesow instead decides to use squares, for a squarecrawl, basically.
There are also no permanently keyed encounters, all the encounters are on random tables.
This includes meadows which have an encounter on a roll of 7 on a d6.
Oh yes, did you see! Did you see?! He made a joke!
What’s interesting about the encounters is how… stock medieval fantasy they all are. One would assume that with a setting where he uses all kinds of orientalist tropes he would do the same for the wilderness section. Instead it seems like he just took the monster descriptions from the rulebook: wolves, trolls, boars, a tatzelwurm. The closest to the Arabian Nights scenario you might be expecting is an Earth Spirit that can give you some healing.
But it’s really the city adventure part where this scenario shines.
For one: there is an actual city adventure part with an actual map of Thalusa.
For the second: you are given free reign how to actually deal with the situation.
Now you were supposed to deliver a document, but you likely lost it either on the sea journey or over land.
If you didn’t you most likely handed it to the wrong person at the palace and he lost it for you instead.
Springing the prince might not be easy, but can be possible. Sneaking into the palace is possible (it’s worked out), but finding the right person there is difficult. Dealing with the executioner and his tools is also another option (the tools need to be in top order according to tradition).
Here is when the bog standard fantasy scenario all of a sudden turns into a heist. most likely the heroes will have to do something to save the prince, but what and how is their own choice. The scenario gives some valid ideas, but I bet some players would have more.
You could have an infiltration/dungeon crawl through the palace, but you don’t have to.
For what it’s worth if you are breaking into the palace you might encounter a scribe you can blackmail by threatening his favorite calligraphy.
And if you break into the executioners house you might encounter a Ulmenknecht, which seems to be a treant kind of being? I don’t think this being is still canon in DSA. It’s not the proper treant equivalent (that would be a Waldschrat), more like a wood golem?
Which is the result of a rather sinister human sacrifice he and a druid wanted to perform on a magician who managed to hit back with a transformation spell. Which caused him to turn completely black.
For some reason this story is the longest of all the NPC bios, despite being otherwise a rather incidental character.
And one who doesn’t actually do anything bad as such while the PCs are around.
I think Kiesow is very much going very much for the image of Der Schwarze Mann here, a “Kinderschreckfigur” (character to scare kids with? Man, we Germans have weird concepts sometimes) that is quite widespread. I still remember playing both the associated kids game and the card game based on it.
But here it manages to keep all the bad connotations that made this game… inappropriate in polite society.
Dolguruk is I think still an active NPC in current DSA lore, he usurped Shenny’s father at one point and became ruler of Thalusa, and being an elf he also doesn’t seem to be easy to get rid of. He also had his backstory modified to have gained his look from a pact with a demon.
Not sure if that’s better or worse.
So…what do I think about it?
I don’t think Kiesow intended for this to come across as it does, but he nevertheless managed to write some really unfortunate implications in here.
Which might explain why this adventure never got the re-releases that other adventures from him got, despite being, from a design standpoint alone, one of his best so far.
There is considerable freedom of choice both in the wilderness and the city sections, and room for player creativity, all under time pressure. I really like this and I want to play this with people. I might need to prepare people that it was written 40 years ago.
Other languages
This gets into the times when the DSA adventures were no longer translated into many languages. The only translation I can find is the French one, in both the Schmidt and Gallimard version.
Still not sure why there were two versions. According to one commenter on dice.camp one was the Schmidt version, like in German, the other was the same format as the Gallimard gamebook translations and would have been sold in bookstores instead of toy stores.
In any case they used the secondary title for that, Le Bourreau de Thalussa. Not the worst choice.
@Meuhwee Je crois que l‘embauche d‘un scribe lilliputien serait la meilleure option.
Le plus petite police de caractères en plomb qu‘on ait connue, c‘est la Perle de Luce. C’est vraiment très petit ! mais les poinçons étaient gravés à la main, les (petits) livres composés et imprimés. C‘est très étonnant… https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Ren%C3%A9_Luce
@Camus Question assez difficile, il y a plein de critères qui peuvent rentrer en jeu. Mais j'ai longuement réfléchi et réussi à extraire un film gagnant.
Les Bronzés font du ski.
Il y a plein de films français qui sont ou ont été des marqueurs culturels, des influences énormes sur leur époque, qui ont créé ou lancé des expressions, des memes. Je pense à Hôtel du Nord ("Atmosphère, atmosphère"), au Corniaud ("Elle va marcher beaucoup moins bien"), au Père Noël est une ordure ("ça dépend ça dépasse"), à Astérix Mission Cléopatre ("c'est une bonne situation ça, scribe ?"), et au Dîner de cons ("Juste Leblanc"). Mais au delà de tout ça, Les Bronzés font du ski (qui réussit d'ailleurs à être une des rares suites meilleures que le film auxquelles elles font suite) est devenu le symbole de toute un pan d'activité (le ski et les sports d'hiver en général). Pour ma génération en tout cas, c'est presque automatique de penser aux Bronzés quand on parle de planter de bâton, quand on se retrouve sur un télésiège qui marque un arrêt, ou quand on savoure une fondue un soir d'hiver.
Pour des raisons différentes, si je devais assigner une deuxième place, ce serait à I comme Icare. D'une part parce que c'est un excellent film avec un suspense palpitant, qui a même réussi à me captiver quand je l'ai vu enfant alors que je suis généralement hermétique à ce genre de thrillers politiques. D'autre part parce qu'il a présenté et popularisé l'expérience de Milgram, et qu'il est toujours intéressant de connaître ce genre d'expériences et leurs conclusions pour mieux cerner la psyché humaine.
J'essaie de partager que du positif ici contrairement à l'oiseau bleu MAIS
les IA c'est bien rigolo mais s'en servir pour un projet #jdr PROFESSIONNEL qui va faire l'objet d'un FINANCEMENT participatif c'est NON pour moi.
Les logiciels utilisés pillent le travail d'artiste de un, de deux vaut mieux engager un humain et de 3 vous aurez même pas de droits sur l'image finale c'est balo Hein ^^
Marre qu'on piétine la morale dans le monde même dans nos loisirs
En quoi piller le travail d'artistes est-il plus mal que piller le travail d'agriculteurs, ouvriers, bibliothécaires, scribes, tailleurs de pierre, mineurs, allumeurs de réverbères, traducteurs, caissiers, vendeurs, bûcherons, chevaux de poste, animaux de trait, galériens...?
De tout temps, les machines ont remplacé le travail humain (ou animal).
Et le travail humain (ou animal) a évolué avec.
Il faut se rappeller que l’IA est un outil. Comme tout outil révolutionnaire, ça aura un impact
Pour faire une analogie avec des technos du passé pour se rendre compte, remplacez “IA” par “Imprimente”. L’imprimente va-t-elle supprimer des emplois ? Elle est capable d’écrire des docs en quelques secondes au lieu de devoir avoir un scribe, et de les répliquer à l’infini très facilement.
Donc oui, il va y avoir un impact, des métiers disparaitront (ou se spécialiseront; disparaitront que pour le gros du marché mais resteront existant pour les petites structures ou les boulots qualitatifs), il y aura aussi de nouveaux emplois: il faudra bien des gens pour paramétrer, utiliser ces IA et les relire (ce qui seront des métiers qui n’ont pas de raison de ne pas être accessible aux anciens “remplacés” par ces IA)
C’est ça la technologie, ça avance, ça évolue, et ce qui est obsolète est remplacé par de nouvelles technos; pourtant notre civilisation n’a pas disparue, et on a toujours du boulot, alors que depuis bien longtemps on croit risquer la fin de tous les emplois avec les nouvelles techno arrivantes
TL;PL: Ça va pas “compléter” ou “détruire” les emplois, ça va les changer, comme les nouvelles techno l’ont toujours fait
[Spoilers EXU: Calamity] Second Episode Discussion (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Welcome to Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. If you were expecting a fun one, you’re not getting one! This is a story of grief, betrayal, loss, and the panic of the coming of a new age, Calamity....
Selon vous, quel est LE film français que tout le monde devrait avoir vu?
Le dîner de cons pour ma part, surtout pour la seconde lecture une fois adulte
L'intelligence artificielle générative devrait compléter plutôt que détruire des emplois (www.ilo.org)
Posté ici car article en francais sur une prolématique qui peut toucher toute la population
Presenting the June 2023 Lather Log, or Breaking Up is Hard to Do
In the words of djundjila, “where did July go so fast?”...