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You know i didn't actually think writing a story about a picture was going to work well but, it kept me occupied and at least one person liked it. OH quick cardgame.wikispaces.com update, I put up some pages expanded some stuff and etc. Anyway on to the pic.

Rodimous Drest, thats my name and I'm the one who guards this castle. I've trained to use every weapon in existence and carry at my side an ancestral weapon that has been in my family forever. This means nothing really as nothing ever happens around here, never, which is how I prefer it to be. I walked, as I do everyday, from hall to hall checking for cracks, looking for disturbances, and just making my rounds around the place. I had done this all my life, as long as I remember at least. I can't imagine a life where I don't do this and yet a can't imagine why my life is only this. My footsteps echo as I walk, they hadn't always done this, only started when my farther died and the place was devoid of life save for me. It doesn't bother me but it does remind me that I'm here alone, this great massive building and me all alone in it. I should be honored that he left me to care for this place, I should, but I always wanted to see what was beyond the waterfall, always wanted to see what this place called "land" was like. Still, I have a job to do and that job must be done.

I often think on these long walks through the castle. Not because I think this job is boring, no, but because I've learned this place so well I can do both. Usually I think about simple things, maps I've seen, the last time I saw a ship pass by, things like that. Recently though, as I've aged and noticed that I'm starting to slow down more and more as the days go on, I've started to wonder about who will guard this place once I've gone. My father use to say that we, the Drest family, have always guarded this place, even before history was written. He said how even before a city was built at this site that our family would make their home here and protect anyone who wandered by from monsters. Once a city was built on this cite, we protected it from raids and enemy kingdoms because the city had not yet trained a militia. Even after the militia, later the army, was defending the city we stuck around.

I thought I heard something, sort of a clang but dismissed it as the wind, I mean what else could it be.

I always thought that it was just in our blood to defend others but that changed when an earthquake that caused a great flood washed away the city and left only our home. This is when I first started to consider that perhaps we were not just another family. Still even when the city was gone and all the monster tribes had either died or left we stayed. I still don't understand why I mean theres nothing special about this place.

I could have sworn I heard that same clang I herd a minute ago, it sounded familiar like something I've heard long ago.

I was almost done with my rounds when I began to think about how long I had spent defending this place. If my math was right it had been three hundred twenty four years but something was wrong with my math, I'm a human, theres no way I could have been here and alive this long. I started to recount to see where I had gone wrong when that noise came back again but this time it was different, this time I was loader and closer. I stood still halfway from the castle gate and halfway from the library and listened. Clang, clang, clang. So familiar yet so strange. I listened very carefully and realized it came from the door. Quickly I rushed to it, this was possibly the only visitor to this place since the flood. I opened the door locks unsure what to espect thoughts rushing through my head, who could it be, will they like me, are they here for help, are they here to kill me, what do I look like, what do they look like, will they look at me and run, will they see me and ask to stay, what if they do want to stay. The locks were opened, all that was left was to open the door. I stood there for what felt like hours, hand on the door unable to open the door, unable to face what was behind it. I heard footsteps, loud at first and then slowly fainting away. I opened the door in time to see someone near the opposite end of the bridge look back and continue to walk away.

I closed the door and relocked it. I then headed to the library. Today, I thought, I'll reread volumes 1-4 on Elven and Dwarven architecture. This will be my seventh read through. Later as I lay in bed, I thought of what I did and what I could have done differently. I couldn't help but feel incomplete. Tomorrow, I thought, tomorrow I'll go out and see if I can find the person that came. The morning came, I woke earlier then I usually did, and I prepared to leave. Packed a few bags, took a tent, got some food from the arcane stone in the kitchen and headed to the door. As I unlocked the door I felt like this was the right thing to do, like this was the first day in the rest of my life. I opened the door and looked out. Land only a short walk across the bridge. The waterfall never seemed to loud. As I saw the sun rise over the hill in the north I thought about how this would be when I start my rounds around the castle. I walked back in, locked the door, and began my rounds. This was for the better, I thought, I mean if I leave who would keep this place clean and safe. I began to walk, as I do everyday, from hall to hall making my rounds, footsteps echoing throughout the place.

I'm kinda tired so I'll stop here. This is a 3 day weekend for me so i'll probably post some more stuff on cardgame.wikispaces.com and write another blog post.

So I wanted to post something today but I couldn't think of anything write about. So my friend suggested that I take a random picture and give it story and such. Seemed like a good Idea so lets try it out

This is a picture I like, I figured that I would start with something fantasy that I like but If anyone has suggestions or wants to see me struggle to create a story for a picture for which story was not an objective, go ahead and tell me. Now on to the picture.

The Bloodaxe family is a family of dwarves who were banished from the dwarven homeland because Flamebreath Bloodaxe tried to kill the king. What the people didn't know was that the Flamebreath had burned the kings throne room and locked him in so that he could distract the guards. He needed to distract the guards so that he could enter the kings bedroom, take the key to the treasury and kill the orc assassin that waited within.

It had been three hundred years since the Bloodaxe family had ever set foot on the homeland. Flamebreath was getting old and would soon die. His last wish was to die and be buried on the homeland. His son knew this and so took his father and they set off to the homeland. After weeks of travel they made it to the gates, the sight they saw was the most horrid thing either of them could imagine. They saw what seemed like thousands of dwarves and orcs all fighting not only one another but each other as well. Brothers fighting brothers, men killing children and all of them being torn down and taken out by the invading group of orcs.

The father and son fought their way into the city even having to strike at a dwarf or two (they did not kill one dwarf only spill some blood). After hours of wading through the blood soaked streets where combat between the dwarves and orcs continued they found the Great Keepers Hall where all the historical records were kept. It was there that they found out that 250 years ago the king was killed with no heir to inherit his crown. It was then that a great divide formed between the oldest families over who should take control. This divide eventually turned into an all out war between the two most popular sides. One side said that the second oldest family, family Bronzebottom, should be the new royal family. The other side argued that the Hammerhall family had right to the crown because their family had been the right hand to the king for generation. As tension grew between the two sides the feeling of distrust grew larger and larger until all out war broke out. It was then that the orcs started their 100 year campaign to conquer the dwarven homeland.

The Great Keepers Hall was the most sacred structure in the homeland. Dwarven blood covered the floors, empty bookshelves that once held the most ancient books in the world stood broken and and burned, and the walls that had been hand crafted by the 12 original families to settle the area were gone and in their place stood the moon high above. They barred the door to the hall and prepared it for assualt, they knew that the conflict would soon spill into this building to. They readied their weapons, drank the last of ale they had brought and charged forward at the door as it broke apart and wave after wave of orcs flooded in soon followed by some dwarves.

The son had lost sight of the father but knew that alive or dead he would soon have his wish fulfilled. It had been hours, he was getting tired, he was fighting a losing battle and knew the end was soon to come. He spotted what looked like an orc commander striking down two and three dwarves a swing. He ran at him until he was trading blows with him. The orc raised his club for a finishing move, the dwarf prepared to make his last strike against the giant.

Well that all I have for this picture, hope you liked it, I'm going to go work on cardgame.wikispaces.com now (doing actual rules now).

I have recently opened the box where I keep all my cardgame/wargame rules and cards and such and found that a lot of stuff is missing, either removed or destroyed or lost. As such it will take longer for me to post all the card powers but I do have some up and i will make up for this by posting a lot more of the rules then I expected to.

Now for some actual D&D content. I am too lazy to rewrite some stuff I posted on a wiki so I'll just link the wiki, zombiepocolypes.wikispaces.com/ 

a lot of stuff there is misspelled because I created it a long time ago, I mean I can't even remember making it. It's not a complete setting by any meaning of the word but I feel its enough content to be considered a blog post. If people want me to update it then tell me by commenting on this blog post and I'll try to fit it in somewhere. otherwise I hope it inspires you in some way.

Oh I almost forgot, a picture. Well I have some stuff but I think this'll be the last time O post pictures at the end of blog post as I don't think people actually loot at them. Again, not sure where I got them, when I got them, or who created them, if someone wants to tell me, leave a comment with the info

"CONTENT REMOVED BY AUTHOR" -Love The Sign Painter

And This is ones for all those 3.5 Players

cardgame.wikispaces.com

I have finished putting up the equipment card rules and some equipment cards. Next Up will be the Hero Units, Faction, and Stat explanation rules. Then of course an alphabetical listing of the different card powers with an explanation of what the powers are

Oh, yeah, and heres a pic

Once again I have returned, this time to a hopefully more regular posting schedule. Now there was something I wanted to write about but it's been so long I've forgotten. 

Quick update on my wargame, I finally got around to posting all the stats for the cards (except for vehicles and hero units and equipment) on cardgame.wikispaces.com now I just have to put up the rest of the rules and an explanation of what all the powers are. After that I can finally start filling in the flavor text on the cards and work on the games setting.

Quick update on my RPG. I've settled on a way to track hit points, each player has hit points which are not life but how much he can avoid getting hit before he gets tired and life points wich represent how many hits he can take before he dies. Also fully fleshed out how the abyss works, surrounding the world is the abyss, in the abyss there is no life, no death, no up no down, nothing. Within the abyss are the planes (feywild, shadowfell, etc)(no I don't have those planes in my game). The way it works is that anything can and will be created in the abyss all it requires is belief that it exist. Anything from the gods and the worlds to a gold coin or piece of rock can be created by just believing it into existence. This does not mean that whatever it is you asked for will just appear in front of you, no it will appear somewhere in the endless darkness that is the abyss. So sure you could will into existence a box that weighs nothing and contains within it billions of gold coins but you would need not only you to believe in it but a few of your friends and maybe some more people to also believe it exist. The smaller the thing the easier and less people you need to make it exist, and the more likely it is to have it appear close to you. Because everything in the abyss exist only if people (sometimes a lot of people depending on how big or powerful the thing is) or if something of great power exist near the thing it is possible for things to stop existing if people don't believe in it. There is no better example of this then Joe Smith. Joe Smith was a veteran of the Second Crusade, he was not well known but he fought bravely, saved the life of a great wizard who in turn create for him a mansion in the abyss and told exactly where it was. Unfortunately for Joe no one believed him when he told them and so after the war, when he went to where the mansion was suppose to be, he found only a piece of rock just large enough to support the doorway that sat on top of it.

It's still a little choppy and theres some stuff I should work on some more but that the general main idea.

Heres something I created for my D&D game, Architects Mirrors. In the architects tomb there are the guest rooms. In those rooms sit massive mirrors that cover the wall, these mirrors are enchanted to distort what it reflects back depending on how good or evil someone is. For example if say a brave adventurer who came to kill the architect and burn the necropolis to the ground where to look into a mirror they would see all the evil they have caused, they would see how every action the hero has taken that he thought was right has lead to more evil and more pain and suffering being created.

I has some other stuff I wanted to say but I don't have much time as this is a friends laptop and they're leaving soon. Oh before I forget, heres a picture I enjoy

This is one of my favorite campaigns to run because with the exception of one person, its all new gamers.

Heres some story stuff, so I started them out in a small farming town, this town has had a lot of trouble with local tribes of monters attacking and raiding so a small group of soldiers were sent to protect the town. When the soldiers arrived and started to attack the monster tribes the monter tribes got mad and starting attacking in larger groups more often. The soldiers, overwelmed sent out a call for bounty hunters to help them out, the only group to respond was a relatively small new group (the party).

So for there first mission I thought I'd do something simple to get them use to the system and start seeding some story. I had the soldiers send the party to a nearby cave that is believed to be the base of opporations for a band of kobolds. Secretly they were being sent because the soldiers had given the kobolds weapons and money in exchange for attacking the town more often, see the soldiers didn't want to be at this dead end farming town as they saw it as beneath them to guard a bunch of farmers they also wanted to move up in the ranks to royal guard and knew that the kings son was secretly in this town to protect him from assassination attempts. They figured that if the town were destroyed by the monster and they came out of it with the kings son alive that they would be immidiately moved up to royal guard. They also knew that if they didn't make it seem like they did all they could to save to town that suspition would spring up so they sent out a call for a merc group.

I'll post more about the campaign later (right now there level 5 and in the first level of the tomb of the architect in thenecropolis trying to find a map of the city)

Oh I almost forgot chech out this picture I like

my wargame is really really small if you compare it to warhammer, in fact i consider it a card game but thats just me. Anyway it is small only about 40 or so cards/units per faction and 5 factions at the moment. I plan to double the number of cards when I run into a situation where its make more cards or die of bordom.

The five factions are Dominion, Darkbloods, Archcasters, Civilized, Uncivilized.

Dominion is comprized of the humans who were banished from the empire (civilized) because they believed in a higher god like power and the king thought that was undermining his rule and control of the people. They are also made up of a race of beings they named themselves after (Dominion). This race of angel like being, according to scripture, "Riped the sky apart with a great white light, and from this light they flew down and guided us to this great land and gave those of us who truly believed gifts of power"

Darkbloods is made up of humans who were banished from Dominion for fearing the angelic race and not worshiping and praising them. They are also made up of a race of beings who have no name and so people who followed them call themselves by the most distinguishing feture of the creatures (they have Dark blood flowing through their veins). This race of demon like begins according to legend came at the same time as the Dominion race. "And so when all hope seemed lost and the last of food supplies were to run out soon, the sky was filled with a white light that seemed to burn the sky apart, and from this rift poured out creatures of light who flew to us on wings and promised to showed us the way to land in exchange for worship of them. Then from the shadows cast by the rift of light arose other creatures, beings of shadow and darkness, beings of power and fear. These creatures did not attack but mearly stay in the shadows and watch in what seemed like disgust as the angelic race of light directed us to land. They gazed upon a select few who seemed to see beyond the smoke and mirrors of this angelic race, and those who met their gaze saw the truth, that these 'saviors' were nothing but oppressers and monsters who only cared for themselves and kept people around them alive so that they may continue to serve them."

Archcasters are the elves who have allied with Jim Darkmagic (guess the refrence). Jim Darkmagic of course being the elf who took the secrets of magic from the ruins of a long gone race. They constently fight with the humans for control of the lands with all the ruins. They have mastered a bit of the magic but have mearly scratched the surface. Jim, the most gifted and intelligent of the elves, has learned the most and so is ruler of the magic empire that has been named after him (Darkmagic Empire). Jim is so powerful that he created solid crystals the sized of castles made of nothing but pure arcane energy.

Civilized is the human race who stole massive amounts of technology from the ruins of a long gone race. They have control of these ruins at the moment and are expanding their influence towards the elven lands to secure any remaining ruins they may have. Although they have all this technology they don't understand any of it, they have gone so far as to figure out how to use some of the more primitive stuff (some robots, shotguns, rifles, energy blades, etc) but the higher tech stuff (energy shields, planes, ships, nanotech armor, heat seeking rockets, etc) has yet to be figured out. They have a king and recently, due to a discovery in a caved in underground passage, a tech advisor "The Overmind" as it likes to be called. It seems to control all the technology that has been found so far, it seems to be some sort of supercomputer. It can talk and has said that it will continue to run the technology but many people have don't trust it.

Uncivilized is composed of two races, the Dwarves who allied themselves with the uncivilized for mutual survival and the Orcs. The Orcs are a race of super intelligent beings who are so innately intelligent that they do not value it. Instead they value brute force and power. If they had access to the technology that the humans stole from the ruins not only would they be able to understand it but they would be able to improve it in a matter of days. They have either extinct or enslaved all the races of creatures in their homeland and would have grand cities and amazing technology if it were not for the fact that their homeland is nealy barren and has no minerals or precious metals. It is because of this that there technological advancement is at a standstill.

There are 6 stats to every card (hero units, minions, and vehicles excluded) Cost (how many summon points it cost to bring the unit to the field of battle), Attack (the damage the unit does when it attacks), Defense (the amount of damage the unit doesn't take when it actively defends itself), Speed (how many squares the unit moves when it uses an action to move), Health (the amount of damage the unit can take before it dies), and Actions (the number of actions the unit can take on a given turn). Actions are spent to move, attack, use abilities, and defend.

Well thats all I feel like writting about my wargame/cardgame for now. If your interested I have a wiki set up where im putting the cards stats and the rules up, cardgame.wikispaces.com

Oh yeah and before I forget, heres a picture I like

hello anyone who reads this, I am typing this from a friends laptop and I would like to tell you why I have been  away for such a long time.

I have windows vista currently installed on my computer and one day I decided I should probably install service pack 2, so I downloaded it and installed it and now my computer doesn't work, It starts normally for about a min then hits me with a blue screen with some stop error message, so I look up the error message and I find out that no such error message exist.

Anyway, during this time where I didn't have access to a computer I decided to work on my RPG and wargame a bit. I now have a template for talent trees for my game and three or so talent trees worked out and awaiting final damage numbers.

Im not sure If i've spoken about talent trees before on this blog so let me tell you about them. My game doesn't have classes, instead it has talent trees in wich you put talent points into to gain powers and abilities similar to class fetures and powers. Although you could dip into multiple talent trees and gain multiple abilities (my version of multi-classing I suppose) the trees are designed to reward you for specializing. For example The Bloodmage Talent tree has three specialization, one that focuses on damage over time, one for high burst damage, and one that is more ranged spellcaster medium damage. If one were to only put talent points into the first power of each specilization and move on to a different one then that person would get an ok single target attack and preatty good damage over time power and a ranged attack. What that person would not get is the ability to deal damage to yourself to increase his damage on these powers by a lot, the ability to deal less or more damage based on how far he is from the target or the ability to extend the time the dot is on the person for more damage in the long run or shorten the time the dot is on the person for a quick burst of damage.

I know what your thinking 'what if he sticks with just this one tree and puts talent points into all the specializations?' well, nothing is stopping the person from doing that but they only have so many talent points and spreading them out among the three specilization will mean he wont have access to the more powerful later on stuff.

I could go on but its kinda late and I wanna do some other stuff on this website before I continue to write so i'll leave it at that, oh wait I almost forgot, heres a picture I like.

some (or more than likely no one) of you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything recently, well thats because I started doing some hard balance work with my RPG (website for the story and fluff of the game can be found at www.forimefire.wordpress.com). But I have recently finished that work and am going to use this blog as my main blog (well I say main, I really should say 'my' as I have only two and one of them is for story.) (that website again is www.forimefire.wordpress.com).

Oh and heres a picture I like