Race for the Galaxy

Played last night on Board Game Arena with friends from California and Maryland.   While digital gaming does leave some things to be desired, it was nice to catch up with people before and after the games.  And while Zoom meetings are not the same as in person meetings, my wife and I are learning to adapt.

Race for the Galaxy is fun.  You draft planets and development cards to earn resources and victory points, or bonuses to future actions.  You pick one action every round and gain a bonus for that action, but you can still perform other actions (without the bonus) if someone else picks that action for the round.  It's another one of those games that's easy to play but I suspect there is a lot of underlying strategy that none of us are getting yet.  I like the theme of building an interstellar empire, although, apart from the card art, the theme could have been anything at all.  It's an older game, but still fun in my opinion.

Vegas

Oh yeah, I forgot to report in my previous post that I'm going to Vegas in November.  In the (presumably still) middle of a pandemic.  I'm seeing friends I haven't seen in 29 years.  I've resolved, of late, to endeavor to visit friends and family more often as the years roll on.  No telling how many years are left in which to do so.  Who knows, November may already be too late.  Still, I'm pleased at the thought of getting out and about again.  It has been too long.  I just hope I'm not taking an unnecessary risk at the expense of my loved ones. 

Disingenuous

I started off today writing a post on pop culture.  Then I realized I was just copying the tone of other blogs I read.  Better to be bad originally than to be bad derivatively.  This feels like a waste of time.  I have no thoughts I feel compelled to put to posterity.  It has all already been said by the Beatles:  Love is all you need.

Also better to briefly say nothing than to say the same and be long winded.... 

No title

 Nothing to say today.  Got a new laptop at work, and two monitors and two docking stations.  I have to say, so far the pandemic has been very good to me, comparatively.  My house hasn't burned down, I still have a job, I like the people I live with, and no one I love has gotten sick, yet.

I always feeling like writing without a purpose (other than writing itself) is a waste.  I suppose any form of practice breeds a certain amount of skill.

Tonight I go fishing with my daughter.  Then it's off to an AA meeting (online) and then, if I'm not already falling asleep, an ego-crushing game of Scythe online.  Pretty good day, all things considered, if anything goes according to plan.

Nostalgia

 I am playing with the idea of starting another online campaign.  My first one, started at the onset of COVID 19, fell flat.  Part of the blame lies in the fact that I tried to introduce my players to a totally new system.  I was trying to teach them mechanics the whole time and didn't include any role playing.  Part of the blame lies in my lack of knowledge about online tools for conducting a campaign.  I've done some research and made some inquiries of friends, and while I haven't settled on a platform yet I'm beginning to test drive some of them.

In the meantime, the group I play with has taken to playing MtG online, which is thematic in my life.  When I was in my early 20's in 1993, MtG was just beginning to blossom, and all the people I would have played D&D with were playing a collectible card game instead.  As such, I developed an irrational hatred of the game.  I've since played it a few times, and while I can see the addictive nature of the game, it's not something I'll delve into deeply.  I went way down the rabbit hole with Star Wars X Wing Miniatures, and I'm not dropping 2K on another game involving that scale of investment.  But it's pleasant enough to play online.

I think the group will welcome a return to something more familiar.  I've yet to decide if I want to continue with Pathfinder first edition, 2nd edition, or D&D 5th.  The latter two would involve learning a new system, and investing in, at the very least, 2 or 3 new books.  The first would be comfortable.  Perhaps too comfortable.  I quit Pathfinder because I felt I'd played myself out in that system.  

I'll leave that decision to another day.

Is it the wrong time of year for resolutions?

I never can seem to get the timing right.

Here are two of mine:  Journaling, and finishing the novel I'm 12 chapters into writing.

I'm a pessimist (no shit, says anyone who ever knew me), and I've always felt the world was close to the edge of the abyss.  Comes with any upbringing that includes knowledge of the existence of enough nuclear weapons to reduce the planet to a cinder.  But I've never felt we were closer to Armageddon than I have for the last 4 years.  I read through the Bible... twice... cover to cover.  There's a lot I don't understand there, but the most incomprehensible chapter by far is Revelations.  Seven-headed dragons making war with Mary's children.  Descriptions of angels that are anything but human.  Messages to the seven Christian churches of that age.  To be honest, my recollection of everything I've read is spotty these days.  But time and time again, Scripture comes back to me, like pop culture references.  I can't tell you what the mark of the beast is, and I wouldn't be quick to trust anyone who said they could.  I can't tell you if the donald is the antichrist.  Or if Hitler was.  Or if there are multiple antichrists.  What I can tell you is that these days the man in charge of the BUTTON with a capital B is a lunatic and a narcissist, and he's not alone in that respect.  There's a gangster in charge of Russia.  I don't know much about China, but I've heard that while they're not looking for a fight at present, they wouldn't back down from one, either.  

What does that change?  Nothing, really.  I've always lived by the assumption that today could be the last.  I've been wrong, every single day of my life so far.  You'd think I'd learn something from that.

You'd think....

The Dragon Coins

The Dragon Coins

By Henry Swinebottle

Circa 357YL

The creation of the Dragon coins remains shrouded in mystery, mainly due to the confiscation of all records prior to the arrival of the Invaders by the Lewisian Emperor in YL 30.  Scholars of the Coins must either study at the University and ply a senior administrator for access to forbidden records (and are thus sworn to secrecy ever after, making publishing such an account an impossibility), comb the countryside for ancient Elvish texts that slipped through Lewisian fingers during the purge, or speculate endlessly over the few crumbs of knowledge available to us regarding the coins. 

What is known is this:  There are 10 coins, of which 8 can be vaguely accounted for.  There are five coins with a representation of a chromatic dragon (red, black, blue, white, green) and five coins with the representation of a metallic dragon (silver, brass, bronze, copper, gold).  Each of the coins enables the user the one time service of an Elder dragon from the Mountains East of the Empire.  Each of the coins bears a portion of the true name of one of two dragons on it.  The Werbergians, when they came to the Empire in search of asylum in the year 260 YL, had 4 such coins with them (all metallic), the fifth of which they used to gain safe passage through the Pass of Bones, which is guarded by the two dragons named on the coins.  One of the remaining 4 coins held by the Werbergians was given to the Emperor (who in turn gave it to the University where it has remained for study for the last 100 years) as a gift of gratitude for letting them settle in the desert south of the Wild Plains.  One of the coins was stolen from the Grand Abbot by the Poison Clan, and its whereabouts are unknown.  Two of the coins are still held by the Grand Abbot.  Four of the coins are held by a wicked red dragon called Bonescraper in its hoard high in the mountains somewhere south of the Pass of Bones.  One of the coins is held by a dragon known as the Silverking in the Hammer Mountains North of the Pass.  Ownership of a coin allows one safe personal passage through the Pass and immunity to attacks from dragons, but for anyone else to pass with you, you must invoke the power of the coin.

Therein ends all known information about the coins.  The rest is rumor and speculation.  The Poison Clan was thought to have absconded with the stolen coin and settled somewhere in the west near the Imperial city of Feidvale.  The final coin is believed to be in the possession of a devotee of the demon prince Pazuzu, prince of evil winged animals, somewhere in a mountain fortress inaccessible from the ground. 

Once a coin is used, it reputedly returns to the possession of either the Silverking or Bonescraper.  The five metallic coins each have printed on them a fragment of Bonescraper’s true name, while the five chromatic coins have fragments of the Silverking’s name on them.  Legend has it that the coins were created by the Silverking over a millennia ago to prevent a war between good and evil dragons that would destroy the known world.  Bonescraper only agreed because his five coins were to be given to a wicked Emperor in the East who reputedly used one of the coins to have the ancient red dragon light his samovar for tea.  Bonescraper knew the evil and greedy emperor would use the coins quickly to conquer all the surrounding lands, which he did.  But the final coin, the black coin, was stolen by a demon prince and carried away never to be used.  The demon prince learned of the coin through the Silverking himself, knowing that the prince would covet the world and never give the coin willingly to Bonescraper by using it.  Bonescraper is powerless to harm the owner of a dragon coin, as are his many children and servants among dragon-kind.  The two dragons cannot interfere directly in the contest, but they can persuade mortal non-dragons to aid them if any are willing.   Legend also has it that if one of the dragons obtains all five of its coins, it will learn the true name of the other dragon and gain dominion over all the world, with the losing dragon as its servant for all eternity. 

Use of the coins is no easy feat, as invoking its power involves the sacrifice of the head of a slain dragon of the opposite type of the coin used.  Thus, to invoke the Silverking, one must both possess the coin and sacrifice the head of a chromatic dragon.  How the sacrifice is completed is a secret perhaps only the Grand Abbot himself knows.