JUEL.IN

Resurrection?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by J

Well, it has come as no surprise that this blog has been neglected for quite some time now. I started a major redesign project a couple of weeks ago, but since then I have not really found the energy to actually do something about it.

Since this blog is a nice little side project for me, I am reluctant to shut it down or just let it die a slow and painful death, so here I am, back again with nothing to write about.

That last sentence wasn’t exactly right. For the first in about seven years, I have actually come up with a couple of adventure ideas, that I plan on writing down one of these days. True to tradition, I will publish my writings on the blog, and hopefully get some feedback, or at the very least inspire somebody out there to pick up the ideas and run a good old fashion game.

I am not sure when I will actually get to post anything, but hopefully it won’t take me too long.

On a totally different note, I have been so unfortunate, that my registrar has turned out to be somewhat of a scammer, so I expect my domain to die in the near future. For the time being everything is up and running, but I have no access to domains, so one day it just might be gone all together.

Fight Club

Posted on April 17, 2010 by J

I just found this really cool interview with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt from the Fight Club days. Cool movie, cool interview.

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Clash of the Titans part 2

Posted on April 11, 2010 by J

So, I guess I am not really going to write a review of Clash of the Titans. There are many reviews out there on the Interwebs, and I am sure I have nothing to say that has not already been said.

I can, however, talk a little bit about what I thought of the movie.

In all honesty, the story is not all that interesting, especially if you have studied Greek mythology, which I was forced to do back in high school. As it is, the story is inspired by the legend of Perseus, who basically is a demigod who kills a whole bunch of monsters.

The reason for watching this movie is the 3D effects and the great action scenes. Another compelling reason for watching this movie is inspiration for the next gaming session. After I left the theater I was ready to go home and create a Greek inspired game with a whole bunch of demigods, monsters and all that good stuff.

So, to make a short blog post a little bit longer, I highly recommend watching this movie, as long as you take it for what it is – an action banger with some cool effects and characters from Legends and Lore.

Clash of the Titans

Posted on April 11, 2010 by J

I went to see Clash of the Titans with my wife last night. The movie in 3D and was actually pretty cool. I will hopefully have a review up in a couple of hours. I need to get my allergies under control first.

In the mean time please enjoy one of the trailers. There are more of them on Youtube.

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Wizards’ community feature update

Posted on April 7, 2010 by J

I just got an email from Wizard’s of the Coast about updates to the community:

FEATURE UPDATE – APRIL 7TH

From: Wizards

Received: Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:28am

Reply

Forward

Today we have a new Magic theme. Go to Profile > Theme Selection to see it.
We are also adding RSS feeds to the forums later today. You can subscribe to feeds for entire forums or individual threads. Look for the RSS icon in your browser. (We will be adding RSS to blogs – no date for that yet, but it’s on the list.)

What’s next:

Some Facebook and Twitter connections: Post photos and blogs to Facebook from your profile page. Automatically cross-post status updates to your Facebook and/or Twitter account.

Drag & Drop for your home page: Customize your home page by adding or removing modules and rearranging them on the page

Wiki link fix: Stay tuned for more information on this. We will be updating the Wiki parser to fix a few bugs, including a fix to how linking works. As part of this update, we will bulk update existing links to match the new structure. We will send more details before the change, to give you a chance to review and give us feedback.

Outage reminder:

Tomorrow we will have about 3 hours of down time for our sign-on system from 6:00 AM PDT until 9:00 AM PDT.

This will affect login to the Wizards Community site, D&DI, Wizards Help site, and Gatherer comments. The Wizards Community site will remain up for viewing content, but you may not be able to post.

~The Wizards Community Team

All in all it looks pretty exciting, so go sign up if you haven’t already.

Heroes of Might & Magic

Posted on April 1, 2010 by J

Nostalgia is one of the most powerful feelings among the thirty-something, which is why advertising attempts to illicit this particular feeling with this segment. Now, I am painfully aware of how powerful a feeling nostalgia is, I do have a master’s degree in strategic branding, but I chose to embrace it. At least sometimes, hence this blog.

So, I have never been much of a computer gamer, I find it boring, tedious and it usually gives me a particularly bad headache. However, Heroes of Might & Magic, has always been one of the biggest time consumers in my younger days. To be honest, I could play that game for an entire day, eat dinner, and then pay it all night. Sometimes I actually missed classes just so I could play this game.

Retard! you might think. Well, I would tend to agree with you. As it turned out, I did outgrow Heroes of Might & Magic, and I did get my Master’s degree, and I did go to work for an IT company and all that stuff you have to do.

Anyway, it is Easter, and I have a couple of days off, and for once I am not preoccupied with my dumb ass job. It is such a relief, not thinking about that moronic place, that I started cleaning the office. Wifey and I share the office, now that we have two children, so some of my stuff has been packed away behind other stuff.

As I am looking at all the stuff I ought to throw out, my one-year-old son all of a sudden pulls out Heroes of Might & Magic: The Shadow of Death. So between the two of we decide that cleaning is for lesser men, and we pop that bad boy into the cd drive. And what do you know? We were able to run Heroes of Might & Magic on a x64 bit Windows 7 machine.

As you can probably imagine, I have been playing all day, only getting up to do some laundry, vacuum, eat lunch etc. once in a while. I am now close to completing my first quest, and I have a suspicion that I will be playing again tonight.

Iron Man 2 Trailer

Posted on March 20, 2010 by J

I loved the first Iron Man movie, and the sequel looks pretty good too. Enjoy

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Technorati Tags: Iron Man 2

Adventure hook

Posted on March 20, 2010 by J

I was looking through some of my old files, and I found a document I started back in the day with various adventure hooks. See, I used to keep a notebook with me at all times so I could write down ideas for my campaigns. It kept me from going insane many a time. Too bad I can’t do the same thing in current job. Maybe I should start blogging at work?

Anyway, screw my lousy job, here’s the first adventure hook from my old notebook.

The Minotaur Revolt

The ogres are known for their use of slave labor. Among the numerous slaves kept in Daltigoth, a group of minotaurs, who has been taken prisoners and are currently working the mines or building new houses for the ogres. These minotaurs are yearning for freedom, and would gladly join the impending slaughter of the ogres. A powerful group of adventures might succeed in penetrating Daltigoth and free the slaves. However, due to the cultural differences it might prove more than difficult to integrate the minotaurs into the invading army. If the player characters convince the slaves that they are people of honor, the slaves will fight in the war. Given the intimate knowledge of Daltigoth they have, the slaves are valuable allies and it is believed that the leader of the minotaurs will be rewarded with a seat on the ruling council of the oligarchs.

I intended to run these adventure hooks as little interludes in a much grander campaign “The Wizard’s War”. The party was involved in a huge attack on the city of Daltigoth, and the plan was to let that be the overall theme, however, in order to let the players get a little R&R I would let them stray from the main campaign once in a while.

Alas, it never came to pass…

Wizards of the Coast online

Posted on February 22, 2010 by J

I just stumbled across some Twitter accounts belonging to Wizards of the Coast, so I thought I would just share them real quick.

Wizards novels on Twitter: @WotC_Novels
Wizards D&D on Twitter: @Wizards_DnD
Wizards on Facebook

Icingdeath

Posted on February 22, 2010 by J

I created this sword maybe 12 years ago for a minotaur PC, who was a member of the party for which I was DMing. The party was around level 10 (2nd edition rules), and travelled beyond the world of Krynn.

This party was basically a bunch of good guys, who fought evil with remarkable savagery. I decided to use the Ravenloft setting, so I added the Domain of Dread to my own Dragonlance setting. The wizard in the party was a Red Robe with few scruples, which made him susceptible to the influence of the dark powers of Ravenloft.

I needed a character who could pull the party in the direction of good, and as it turned out, the player, who played the minotaur agreed to provide this counterbalance. In order to empower him, and send him on a epic quest, I created the sword Icingdeath.

I stole the name from Forgotten Realms, as it is the name of a white dragon killed by Drizzt Do’Urden. I include the only write up of the sword I could find on laptop. I seem to remember there was a richer back story to the weapon, but unfortunately I cannot find it. I haven’t updated the weapon to 3rd or 4th edition rules either. I don’t have the 4th edition rules, and since my gaming days are long gone, I didn’t see any reason for me to update to 3.5 either.

I hope somebody will find this interesting and maybe update the stats. I’d be more than happy to post the stats on the blog, so if feel free to email me should you decide to update my sword. Email me at dragonlance (at) gigaboot (dot) dk

Icingdeath

Used by: Fighters, The white minotaur.

Description: This sword looks like a normal clabbard, except it glows with a faint white light when drawn.

Powers: Being a Frost Brand Icingdeath has the following natual powers:

+3 bonus to hit and damage.
+6 vs. fire using/dwelling creatures.
Wielder is protected as if he wore a ring of fire resistance:
Immune to normal fires (torches, flaming oil, bonfires, etc.)
Large fires, molten lavas, wall of fires, etc. causes 10 hit points of damage each round the wielder is directly in it.
+4 bonus to saving throws vs. red dragon breath weapon and magical fire.
Damage rolls are calculated by -2.

Secrets: Icingdeath is an intelligent sword and has the following additional powers:

Primary abilities: Detect fire using/dwelling creatures
Locate fire using/dwelling creatures
Extraordinary powers: Cone of cold 1/day (10d4)
Blizzard 1/day blinds opponent

Special purpose: Slay fire using/dwelling creatures

Special purpose power: Paralysis 1d4 rounds save to negate
Intelligence:14
Communication: Speech (telepathy)
Number of languages: 2, Common, Minotaur
Weapon ego: 21

Defenses: Icingdeath chooses its own user and thus does not permit any lesser fighter to wield it. The unfortunate one is subject to a cold shock doing 2d12 points of damage.

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FEATURE UPDATE – APRIL 7TH

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