Author: mountainwashere

Nothing to see, move along.

D&D Campaign Setting: Itasoa

So I’m running a couple of 5th Edition D&D campaigns right now, one in my apartment, one over Roll20.net. (I highly recommend Roll20 to anyone who want to play D&D online, by the way.) This is the world I created for the online campaign, Itasoa. It is, to say the least, very nautical-themed. I originally dreamed it up for other purposes, but converted it to a D&D campaign setting, which necessitated converting the cosmology into a more D&D compatible universe (hence the references to the Feywild, the Shadowfell, etc.), and replacing some of the non-human sentient species I had with D&D species.

Itasoa is an ancient rogue world, spinning alone and adrift in the depths of space. Light and heat come from hundreds of tiny suns closely orbiting the world, and night is almost unknown, except rarely at the poles and in the depths the sea, and occasionally during powerful storms. The surface is almost entirely submerged by a single globe-spanning ocean. The majority of habitable surface on the planet is on the backs of the Godshells, enormous crustaceans miles across that never submerge, with island ecosystems forming on their back as they stride slowly through the oceans.
Geography:
Itasoa is almost entirely covered in an enormous ocean. There are only two continents- one a little ways down from the equator, and a larger one in the northern polar regions. The larger continent, Hurdun, in the north is ice and snow bound, and about the size of Great Britain. The smaller desert continent, Trine, about half the size of Hurdun, is only lightly populated, thanks to the strange, unearthly ruins filling the hot, arid interior, and the mysterious rocklike beings roaming them. There are also a moderate number of volcanic islands scattered throughout the ocean, though they’re created via the lifecycle of the Godshells, rather than tectonic activity, which is relatively sparse and slow on Itasoa. Water-breather civilization is frequently built up the side of the islands, with air-breathers atop it.
There are also massive kelp mats stretching for miles upon miles- these are largely inhabited by amphibious races, and the occasional barbarian tribe. They are prone to breaking up in godwaves and mightier storms.
Some sections of the ocean floor are riddled with mighty, immense rifts filled with horrifying, incomprehensible beasts.
The higher seafloor between rifts is still immensely deep and pitch dark, and is home to monsters, civilizations of insane, blind, voracious creatures, and the remnants of uncounted ships and rotting Godshell corpses.
There are a few Sargassos in Itasoa- current-less areas with little wind, and infrequent visits from Godshells. Getting stranded in one is not recommended.

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Weekly Pull Review 4/1/15

Not much to review this week.

Black Science #13– Image

Even for this series, this was a seriously dark issue. A planet ravaged by a fast acting, horribly contagious, and absolutely lethal virus, which they find out is their fault, or at least the fault of their alternate selves. Multiple characters infected by the disease. At least one, and probably two, character deaths. Flashbacks to the terrible home lives of the McKays. That’s not to say that this is ever a particularly light-hearted series, and the cast almost never gets any downtime from danger, but this issue just feels much, much darker. There are a few lighter moments, as well- Grant seems to have finally embraced the role of mad scientist, leading to jetpack escape scenes and such. Apparently, reading the note in the back, they’ve planned out this series to issue 50 already- I wasn’t expecting it to go quite that far, but I’m not complaining. Still, however, I think they’ll need to slow down here and there, and give us and the characters the occasional breather to prevent action fatigue.

God Hates Astronauts #7- Image

So, apparently the America of God Hates Astronauts is ruled by President Rushmore- literally a man with a smaller version of Mount Rushmore with a head. Watching the various presidents try to work together to make a phone call? Priceless. Also, it isn’t even remotely surprising that Thomas Jefferson is a coke fiend. …Actually, on second glance, he’s not even on a phone, Lincoln just has his head by his hand. Also, the White House flies, and there are snakes wearing business suits. Charles Soule replaces 3-D Ghost this issue for some reason, Time Giraffe hits on Starrior, and there’s pig samurai. (Hamurai.)

Eh. All in all, a pretty tame issue for this comic.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1952 #5- Dark Horse

This miniseries started off pretty slowly, but these last two issues have been moving at breakneck pace. I’m not going to say they feel rushed, by any means- the pacing feels fine. It’s just a very different speed than what came before this. Hellboy fighting Nazis never gets old, either. Overall, it was pretty good (though far from the best of the Mignolaverse), but it feels a bit too stretched out. They really should have had three or four issues top for this story, I think.

Banana Peels

My roommate frequently  opens his bananas wrong (you’re supposed to open them on the end opposite the stem, not at the stem, you philistine), but this is just an abomination. Look at this. 

 

Truly horrific.

Weekly Reading List 3/15/15- 3/29/15

 

I didn’t get a lot of reading done over the past couple of weeks, thanks to houseguests and audiobooks.

Brian Staveley’s The Emperor’s Blades

Audiobook, Fantasy

I resisted reading The Emperor’s Blades for the longest time, despite the legions of rave reviews. Why? Because that is a TERRIBLE fantasy title. Blergh. Of course, I read fantasy titles with worse names all the time, so… who knows. Anyhow, I absolutely loved it. It draws much more heavily from Asian history and culture than the usual generic pseudo-European fantasy land, has characters that I actually care about, and is extremely grim without being grimdark. Also, I listened to it on audiobook. That’s the real reason I didn’t get more reading done- I spent about 40 hours over the last couple of weeks listening to The Emperor’s Blades and its sequel, The Providence of Fire. Honestly, that alone puts me at well above average total reading time, especially since most of the rest of the books are Lawrence Watt Evans novels, which don’t take me very long to digest. Anyhow- fantastic book, definitely worth the read. Or listen. Simon Vance does a fantastic job with the performance- one of the best I’ve heard so far, which is admittedly relatively few.

Randall Munroe’s What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Nonfiction, Humor

This book is absolutely amazing. Randall Munroe, the creator of XKCD, has really outdone himself here. While some of the questions presented in the book are ones that were already on his blog of the same name, many of them are new ones just for this book. In this book, you can find out: What would happen if the Earth and all terrestrial objects suddenly stopped spinning, but the atmosphere retained its velocity? If my printer could literally print out money, would it have that big an effect on the world? How quickly would the oceans drain if a circular portal 10 meters in radius leading into space were created at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean? How would the Earth change as the water was being drained? How high can a human throw something? How much physical space does the Internet take up? What would happen if you were to gather a mole (unit of measurement) of moles (the small furry critter) in one place?

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Weekly Pull Review: 3/18/15 & 3/25/15

You get two weeks at once, since I had houseguests last week!

3/18/15

Invisible Republic #1- Image

Invisible Republic is a far cry from most of the scifi comics I’ve seen lately. It’s a complex political thriller- it is set on a far away world, yes, but the story could likely stand pretty strongly on its own even without the scifi elements, which many stories lately probably couldn’t. Invisible Republic is set on a world seeded by slower than light colony ships, and only lately reconnected with humanity at large via faster than light. A despot/ political strongman was recently overthrown, and the planet is wracked with poverty and political unrest. A journalist discovers a manuscript which seems to be a herebefore untold story of the despot’s rise to power from someone close to him. The story bounces back and forth between the memoir and the “present” day (I always feel really weird saying present day when referring to far future science fiction.) The story could technically exist in a non- scifi environment, sure, but I feel that it is enriched wonderfully by being scifi. The creators (a married couple, actually) depict the transplanted humans and terrestrial lifeforms competing with the local, alien life, it provides an ability to isolate a world that goes well beyond the ability to isolate a nation in any other genre- not only physically, but economically and culturally as well. Plus, the visuals are gorgeous. It’s very much a grim, gritty industrial future, but something about it just clicks for me. One of the best #1s for me in quite some time.

The Manhattan Projects: The Sun Beyond the Stars #1- Image

The Manhattan Projects has been split into a group of miniseries now, following the divergent cast members, who were, to be fair, getting a little unwieldy. The Sun Beyond The Stars follows Yuri Gagarin as he quests to find TALKING SPACE DOG Laika, who’s been missing for some time… IN SPACE (also, got transformed into a dog-humanoid somehow, which edges uncomfortably close to furry stuff for my taste). SPACE. The issue starts off introducing some new alien space threat, then skips to Yuri dealing with SPACE JUSTICE (I don’t know why I’m capitalizing SPACE. I just feel like it.) The Manhattan Projects is one of my favorite comics, but Yuri was never one of my favorite characters in it- I would have rather the series followed Richard Feynman and the interdimensional Einstein clones first. (Hey, there’s a great band name.) Still, I’m very happy to see it back.

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