text:
Extension lends trusted advice
About Extension, Beef
Ms. Keryn Page
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- For a producer running about 200 cattle at any one time, sound technical advice on a variety of issues -- from artificial insemination to marketing -- is invaluable.
Lee County producer Hamilton Smith said his local Mississippi State University Extension Service agents have provided assistance on numerous occasions.
"They give a lot of technical advice that's already been tried and proven. This keeps me from having to learn things through trial-and-error," Smith said.
These sound recommendations help producers like Smith avoid costly mistakes while improving the profitability of their herds.
"They've helped me with marketing of my cattle and formation of sales. They've helped me with artificial insemination -- the best tools and equipment to use and how to use them," Smith said. "They've helped me with cattle selection, pasture management and feed, getting hay sampled and so forth. They also help with all of my beef cattle management, herd management and shot recommendations."
Smith said Mike Howell, northeast district livestock area agent, is one of his sources of information. Howell, who has been with Extension for 21 years, said he spends about 75 percent of his time working directly with producers like Smith.
Howell said his goal is to resolve the problems and concerns of local livestock producers.
"The main thing producers are concerned about now is the general cost of production. On the surface, it looks as though the cattle industry is making a lot of money, but the cost of production keeps going up. That erodes the net profit considerably," Howell said.
Howell said he provides information on the national animal identification system being implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in cooperation with the Mississippi Board of Animal Health. Producers want to know the ramifications, both positive and negative, of this program, and they want to understand the program and how to participate in it.
"Producers are interested in consumer perceptions," Howell said. "They want to raise the kind of animals that will produce food products consumers are willing to pay a premium for."
Howell said he feels a responsibility to work closely with producers to find the answers they need.
"It's important to me to be up-to-date and accurate with my information and to be practical in its application, to save producers some of the time they would have to spend searching for answers themselves," he said. "My biggest contribution is to be aware of the changes and communicate those to the producers."
Howell keeps his knowledge current through day to day involvement with Extension specialists in beef, forage and agricultural economics, and with veterinarians from MSU's College of Veterinary Medicine. He also attends seminars, visits other university Web sites and communicates with representatives in the feedlot industry.
Jane Parish, Extension beef specialist, said major educational programs offered by the Extension Service help keep livestock producers up-to-date on beef production issues. The Mississippi Farm to Feedlot program helps producers make profitable changes in their breeding, health and management programs. The Mississippi Beef Cattle Improvement Association uses MSU research and education to promote genetic improvement in the state's beef herds.
"Another popular program for livestock producers is the Cattlemen's Exchange," Parish said. "This is a very informal program where producers meet typically once a month to discuss relevant issues. Group marketing and purchasing efforts are potential outcomes of this unique educational program."
The Cattlemen's Exchange is designed to address in-depth issues and management practices for more progressive beef cattle producers. The Extension Service facilitates these producer group meetings throughout the state.
Ongoing research at MSU aims to help producers better manage their livestock operations and make profitable changes in breeding, health, nutrition and management programs. Extension forage specialist Richard Watson is working on projects at Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station research units that address the decreased nutritional quality of traditional Mississippi forages during the summer months.
"In one trial, we're looking at an alternative forage crop called chicory. It's a very high-quality forage crop, and although it's not a warm-season species, it does grow through the summer," Watson said. "In a trial at Holly Springs with stocker cattle, we got close to 500 pounds of gain per acre over a two-month period in the spring, and we're continuing to graze those through the summer and fall."
Researchers also are studying chicory as a high-quality crop to improve calf weaning weights. A Prairie trial is seeing similar success using sudan grass and a sorghum-sudan grass cross as alternative forage crops.
Bulls contribute to MSU auction
MSU hires additional horticulture specialist
USDA grant will direct Extension disaster efforts
Farmweek kicks off its 38th season Oct. 3
Field day planned for forages, beef
Super Calf Hutch (See Beef Section For Illustration)
Making a Difference through a Career in Extension
The Mississippi State University Extension Service - Who We Are
http://extension.msstate.edu/news/feature-story/2005/extension-lends-trusted-advice


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layout: post
microblog: true
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date: 2018-06-20 17:34:18 -0600
guid: http://craigmcclellan.micro.blog/2018/06/20/future-star-wars.html
---
[Future Star Wars Spin-Offs Are On Hold at Lucasfilm](http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-story-spin-offs/)

This is so frustrating. Solo was delightful, and I was really excited about Obi-Wan.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Kildare County Council has approved a planning application for 13 new houses at Two Mile House.
The applicant, JP Quinn and sons has permission for four three-bedroom homes, three four-bedroom homes and six five-bed houses, at Stephenstown South.
A number of observations from residents were received including one which expressed concern about surface water disposal "particularly in the light of the poor subsurface ground condition" as well as increased traffic movements on an inadequate road network.
Another submission suggested that the proposal was for a "suburban rather than a village character", which contravenes KCC policy.
Another submission received by the council suggested that the type of homes would be more suited to an urban town development, such as some of the new houses being built in Naas.
That submission also contended that any additional traffic, notably on Chapel Lane, could pose a risk to pedestrians.


I assume that most of my readers are friends and family that already know a little about me, which makes introductions pretty easy. If that is not the case, welcome to my blog and nice to meet you! I am a true Southern California man; raised on the outskirts of Los Angeles county and I earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from San Diego State University. I fully admit to being spoiled by exceptional year-round weather and all the advantages of good food and fun people. It was during my time at university when I began to understand that there is much more to this world than the small familiar areas I call home and there are billions of people in this world that I can learn from. My curiosity of culture and interest in community development began to blossom, which has brought me to where I am today: Madagascar.
I am a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in the southeastern African country of Madagascar since June 2014. In September 2014, I began living and working in a Malagasy community located in the northeast part of this island. My primary assignment is to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL) in public schools. I also work on secondary projects within my community, mostly focused on youth empowerment through English literacy and developing the skills of local English teachers. While the minimum commitment of service in the Peace Corps is 27 months, I have chosen to pursue a one year extension of service starting in September 2016. During this additional time in Madagascar, I will serve as a liaison with other Volunteers, host country supervisors, and Peace Corps staff members.
My favorite part of being a PCV is the opportunity to share cross-cultural experiences. I've learned so much about my host country, and the rich cultural heritage of its people, through social events, food, music, dance, and listening to people tell their stories. With that comes the opportunity to reflect on my own culture and worldview through a new perspective. I also enjoy the challenge of adapting my skills to the needs of my community. My journey in Madagascar is about bridging the cultural divide to build a stronger global community by combining my enthusiasm for travel and my interest in helping others.
I have created this blog as a means of communicating with readers before, during, and after my Peace Corps service. My goal is to show you Madagascar in the most accurate and respectful way that I can. It's such a pleasure to be able to use this medium to share my adventure with you. I hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy writing it.


David De Silva, the man behind the creation of one of pop culture's most enduring tales of the individual's creative struggle for self-expression - known the world over as the film and stage musical, Fame - arrives in Tennessee today for the opening of Circle Players' regional premiere of Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal, which opens at Middle Tennessee State University's Tucker Theatre for a one-weekend run.
"I am thrilled to be going to Nashville to see this super talented company put on a show that's both entertaining and affordable. I am also very happy that it's in an education partnership with Middle Tennessee State University," he says.
Circle Players' regional premiere of the musical, which is a sequel to De Silva's Fame (which was staged in a critically acclaimed production mounted by the same creative collective that ushers Fame Forever to the stage this weekend), is the result of De Silva's own entreaties to the company - Middle Tennessee's oldest community theatre - that they include the newer show on its 2011-2012 season.
When Circle Players mounted the stage production of the popular movie and TV series FAME in the summer of 2009, the show was a big hit. The musical about a group of aspiring teenage artists at a competitive performing arts school in New York in the early 1980s resonated with Nashville area audiences and was performed in front of sell-out crowds.
At the time of Circle's initial success with Fame in 2009, Fame Forever was already in the works - conceived and developed by De Silva, with music by Steve Margoshes and book and lyrics by Ben H. Winter. De Silva let it be known that he wanted Circle to present Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal, again with director Tim Larson at the helm, even though another two years would pass before that wish became a reality.
Along with Larson, the show is produced by LaTonya Turner, with choreography by Kate Adams-Johnson and music direction by Ginger Newman.
As a native New Yorker, the story of the city's High School of Performing Arts (established in 1946) was one that had long resonated with De Silva, resulting in the 1980 film that launched the careers of many young actors and galvanized audiences with its depiction of the struggles of the students and the teachers depicted in the film.
"I was inspired by the Fame story as a native New Yorker, with a degree in history and education, always aware of the High School of Performing Arts," De Silva explains.
" As a magnet public school that kids from all over the city could audition for in dance, music or acting. Rich, poor, black or white - it's free. Great school to have in a democracy - especially if your parents couldn't afford to send you to a private school."
And, according to De Silva, it's also "a good idea for an a musical. Reasons to sing and dance and escape from your neighborhood and fall in love and have passion...passion...passion...for everything."
When Fame, the movie, premiered in 1980, it presented the story of a school unique in the annals of the American educational system. But since then, the idea has been copied throughout the United States.
"In 1980 when the film came out it was about a very unique school," he explains. "In the 30 years since then, every major city in the United States has a performing arts school.
"The pursuit of fame has affected every generation especially now in our media driven age. Since Fame, The Musical was published in 1990, kids around the world have been inspired by it and have come to identify with the characters in the show almost as a rite of passage. It's now being performed in every language and on every continent. Since 1995, it has opened in the West End of London seven times. In fact this year, Music Theatre International (MTI) is publishing Fame Jr. for middle school productions."
"And I thought that age group was solely reserved for Disney shows," De Silva laughs.
After seeing Circle's production of Fame, the Musical in 2009, De Silva was certain he could wait the two years until its sequel became part of the company's season.
"I saw the Circle Players in Nashville do Fame, the Musical in 2009 and I thought it was terrific. I liked the cress section of talent involved and the good ethnic mix involved," he says. "I guess Nashville has a lot a talent to draw on. I also liked the director Tim Larson, who is also a trained choreographer."
"I think Circle Players is one of the best amateur theatre groups in the country, because of its talent, the age range of everyone involved, because of the ethnic diversity, the quality of people and their commitment on all levels of a production."
Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal continues the story of the original musical's characters, now all grown - and their children - who are now students at New York's famed LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts, whose alumni are, among others, actor Al Pacino, Broadway performer Ben Vereen and actress Vanessa Williams.
The show's book is loosely based on the 1935 novella Forever by Mildred Cram. He liked the story's idea of a creative spirit that never dies and can be reborn without a memory. In Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal, Carmen (played by First Night's 2011 Most Promising Actor Faith Kelm), a troubled drug addict who dropped out of school and died of an overdose, gets a chance to see how her life influenced the lives of her classmates as they gather for their 20th high school reunion.
"I love the idea that life goes on, that nothing dies, everything just comes back in another form. After all, it's a big theme in science," De Silva says.
"[Mildred Cram's] story is about creative souls who move around in time from their metaphysical space to our physical plain and back again with faint memory of their past lives. I guess Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal is sort of a musical story of reincarnation like Alan Jay Lerner's On A Clear Day. Although the 'real' world in our story is set in New York City's LaGuardia High School, the Fame school between 2004 and 2014 and follows the lives of some of the alumni from the class of '84. So I guess we're a very contemporary musical play," De Silva suggests.
Compared to the original Fame, De Silva said, the sequel is much wiser, now that the characters have grown and changed. However, despite the changes and time passing, he thinks that what comes through in the story is that the big issues such as life and death are timeless."
De Silva was delighted when Steve Margoshes, the composer of the original Fame, came on-board for the sequel: "The music is quite romantic, that's the style of Steve Margoshes, and I am very romantic and emotional myself. There is such passion in his music. To me, there is no better composer around."
Since the big success of FAME, David De Silva has created the Father Fame Foundation, an organization with the mission to interactively promote theatre arts in education and in life, a mission, that he said dovetails perfectly with Circle Players' mission, as well with the production's status as an educational partnership with MTSU.
"I believe the future success of any show ultimately lies in its' attraction to community theatres and schools," he says. "That's what keeps a show living long after it's published or been received on Broadway.
"My goal for Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal is not Broadway with its $145 tickets and its ten-plus producers who have to raise a million dollars each and hope the critics like it enough so it can break even every week.
"It's very important to me that young people get to participate in the creative process, they need to get involved in every aspect of it."
But, De Silva maintains, it's not so much about encouraging someone to make a living in the arts, but rather, "I just believe that exposure to the arts will help you become a better human being, no matter what you do in life."
Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal runs Thursday through Sunday, July 21-24, at the Tucker Theatre on the MTSU campus, 1824 Blue Raider Drive, Murfreesboro. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets are $18 for adults, $15 for students and seniors (60 and up.) Children 6 and under attend free. Group discounts are available. Tickets can be purchased online at www.circleplayers.net or by phone (615) 332-7529. Individual tickets will be on sale at the box office at the Tucker Theatre one hour prior to each performance.


text:
Q: Google App Engine Datastore index cap Can somebody explain the 5000 index cap in the Datastore in plain English.
Does that mean that an indexed list property of a stored object cannot have more the 5000 elements?

A: Short answer, Yes if you indexed the property.
App Engine limits the number of property values a single entity can have on an index (number of rows * the number of columns) since it needs to create an index for each permutation.  In the case of a single index property you have 5000rows * 1column = 5000.
To show why App Engine does this let's take the example from their documentation.
Model:
class MyModel(db.Model):
   x = db.StringListProperty()
   y = db.StringListProperty()

Index.yaml
indexes:
- kind: MyModel
  properties:
  - name: x
  - name: y

Execution
e2 = MyModel()
e2.x = ['red', 'blue']
e2.y = [1, 2]
e2.put()

In this case, App Engine will have to create 12 indexes for this datastore entry alone, since effectively you can search for any combination of values:
x1
x2
y1
y2
x1 y1
x1 y2
x2 y1
x2 y2
y1 x1
y1 x2
y2 x1
y2 x2

Now if you had 100 values in each property, you can imagine that the list would sky rocket to an obscene amount of queries.
The equation is something like this:
len(x) + len(y) + (len(x)-1 * len(y) * (len(x) + len(y))) = number of indexed

**2 values per property**
2 + 2 + (1 * 2 * (2 + 2)) = 12

**100 values per property**
100 + 100 + (99 * 100 * (100 + 100)) = 1,980,200

A: The Datastore limits the number of index entries that a single entity can have, this limit is set to 5000 elements per entity.
You can test this limit easily using the Interactive shell with the following snippet:
class Model(db.Model):
   x = db.ListProperty(int)

entity = Model(x = range(5001))
entity.put()

'Too many indexed properties for entity %r.' % self.key())
BadRequestError: Too many indexed properties for entity
datastore_types.Key.from_path(u'Model', 0, _app=u'shell')

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Black City Game 3
Mustafa of Arabia, a scimitar wielding desert warrior
Uther of Alfheim, an elf
Shamus Bloodstar, a Gaelic wizard
Mulnar, a Northman cleric
Falki, a Northman specialist
Retainers:
Arthur the Fair
Bjorn Fjordrunner
Skoldig
Visin the Frey Cleric
Twig-Belly
"Let's hope the wizard is clearly interested in this alien skull", was a common sentiment with the party, as they stood in line outside the wizard's tower.
"Wizard's tower, wtf? I thought this campaign is on some frozen island in the arctic circle?", you may ask. Well, yes it is, but apparently that hasn't stopped an enterprising magician from far Arabia from building a tower in sheltered valley not far from Trade Town. He pays good silver for alien relics, they say. The popular rumor is that he's carried back and forth on the winds by his enslaved djinns.
So we resumed play with the party stamping their feet in the cold air, waiting on line outside the wizard's tower. They suffered the boasting of Brand the Red, another petitioner at the wizard's place, whose group 'The Wolf Cloaks' had recovered a golden disc from the ruins, a flat circle covered in weird dots. "This is writing," he said, "And this is what the wizard pays for. He's going to laugh at your stupid box." If there was some sand nearby, Brand would have tried to kick it in their faces.
The inside of the tower was oppressively hot to the Northmen. Only a single person was allowed at a time to negotiate with Milkyaton, the servant of the wizard that appraised items salvaged from the city. Shamus accompanied the strange looking foreigner, wearing the traditional head wrap kufiyya and agal of the desert people, and they went deep into the tower to sit on low cushions and speak. The metal box was carried by a pair of blocky wooden automatons that looked like dwarves with turbans.
In the end, Shamus left the strange tower, with its exotic smells, coffee drinks, and onion-shaped turret on top, with a mere 150sp, but with the knowledge that the wizard would pay well for alien writing (which, to the modern reader, I've been describing a bit like Braille). Now they had a better idea on their scavenging in the city.
Before the next jaunt back to the city, they were at the Njord Hall looking for help, and met a new potential PC, the Northman, Falki (we were down some players, so one of the dads brought his kiddo along). They learned that Galm, the mercenary from last week (who had that thing fly into his head), was out there recruiting his own group, with bold talk of finding the passages into the deeper depths. They wanted to stay far away from Galm after what they had seen.
Back in the dungeons, they went to see if the bandits from the Angry Yrsa were still camped out in one of the rooms. Different week, different players. One Sleep spell later, and the Angry Yrsa was down 7 crew members and the group was counting silver and stacking equipment to take back to town. "They attacked us first", said Shamus. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." The murder hobo tradition is alive and well.
The Well of Woe area is well-trodden, and there were runic markings in chalk on some of the entranceways and hatches giving some indication of the room beyond… the room with the laser turret was marked as "danger", another room might have been filled with undead with the word "gjenganger", and so on. (They ended up defeating the laser with mirrors and looting that room, picking over the decapitated corpses of some less savvy explorers).
There was a large hostelry set up in one of the chambers, a small barracks where a man named Agnarson and his crew offered to provide safe quarters and food in return for coin. "It beats having to pay the toll every day to re-enter the Well of Woe", said Agnarson. "We charge quite a bit less than the toll and you don't have to leave the dungeon at all."
One of the final moments was when they were backtracking to search some areas they moved through quickly, when a large number of rats, giant rats, came skittering out of the dark. The rats ended up mobbing Twig-belly, one of the retainers, who went down to the ground screaming while giant rats clung to his torso and bit him in the face.
"Yeah, he's pretty much dead already, let's just throw oil on the whole mess and call it a night". I'm sure the other retainers will feel that was a good choice, too.
Game three ended with the group hauling all their looted gear back up the Well of Woe and back to camp, meeting the trader to see what was salvageable for coin. We're using a silver standard, so 300sp is a fine "night at the office" for level 1 adventurers.
Nogal used to post an intermittent blog over at Chronicles of Nogal, but the kid's computer died a few months ago and I haven't had the chance to get a new motherboard. He said this is what he'd be putting in his character's diary about game night (if this proves interesting, maybe I'll end the DM's game reports with Mustafa's war diaries).
Mustafa's war diary - Day 3
I got chain mail today. From a dead guy. Woohoo. Another henchman bit the dust today, torn apart by giant rats. Then we put a bunch of oil on him and the rats and we burnt them. I wouldn't want to be him.
Labels: Black City Campaign, Game Reports
Harrow Home's Dark Pit
Here and there, I'm jotting notes for the future setting of Harrow Home Manor. It's significantly different than the Black City and is a good outlet for the supernatural and Gothic horror themes that don't quite belong on Thule. You may recall, it's a crumbling manse on the Yorkshire moors, a 16th century ruin on a site whose history stretches far into the past. Factions of malign sorcerers compete in the darkness to control access to the secrets deep below the ruins.
In the deepest extent beneath Harrow Home is a miasmic hole known as "the pit". The pit is the ultimate prize that drives the competing sorcerers of Harrow Home. Access to the pit… and the strange thing it contains.
The object in the pit was brought to the moors in a time before history; there are drawings in those deeps from an early people that depict the thing in the pit when it was small, when it could still be carried, along with drawings of extinct animals such as the giant tusked mammoths. There are renderings of the thing made at other times; a mural from the Roman occupation of the site, an ink drawing on vellum made by a Christian monk that's been stored in the wizard's library. One cannot escape the conclusion that the thing in the pit is growing, and continues to grow, towards some unfathomable birth. Now it fills the whole space and stands taller than a man.
Written accounts describe it as a black cyst, a scabrous oval whose crack-riddled surface secretes a repellent liquid discharge, or spews strange gases and ruinous spores. These unhealthy discharges form an object of study by Harrow Home's arcane practitioners, both living and dead - they strive to create spells to coax this issue forth with greater frequency and receive the dark gifts it bestows.
The meaning behind the thing in the pit alters through the lens of the observer. To the medieval monks, it was the Adversary itself, the morningstar expelled from the heavens and cast to earth, and they called it The Prisoner. The Romans considered it a Celtic monster, the Celts thought it the eye of Balor, and earlier peoples worshipped it as a sleeping god.
In the end, the monks might not have been so wrong to imagine it fell to earth from beyond the world; the thing generates a terrible gravity as if it seeks to return to Hell itself and the lower dungeons are continually sinking. If the records are to be believed, the old fane at the bottom of the pit was once on the surface of the moors, and the distance to the surface becomes greater as the centuries march on. Thus, there are successive layers of history in the dungeon, and descending into the depths is tantamount to traveling backwards through time.
The first of many forays into the background of Harrow Home Manor, getting some early thoughts out on the blog while these ideas swirl around my head. Most things too supernatural or Gothic quickly get jotted into the notebook for eventual inclusion into Harrow Home. The cyst in the pit would make an awesome drawing - I'm imagining something like a steaming, cancerous version of Mothra's egg, with an obeisant sorcerer nearby.
Labels: Harrow Home Manor
Project Updates - the Black City and Harrow Home
The scope for the current version of the Black City is taking shape. Right now it sits as a long series of text files in a directory, along with a mix of map graphics and hand-drawn maps in a plain folder; I pasted about 2/3rds of the text files into a word document a few weeks ago when we started running it at the table, and it was around 100 pages. I was estimating this first installment to come in around 160 pages; now that I'm abandoning many of the random tables for actual pre-generated content, who knows what that will do to the size (and everything will change when it gets laid out). Some serious editing should shrink it all down.
The scope is turning out to be fairly expansive - it includes the islands of the Thule archipelago as a hex crawl; 320 detailed hexes for the ruined surface of the city; 15 or so detailed surface areas within the ruins (many of them are multi-level mini dungeons, such as large towers that still stand); the first 2 dungeon levels beneath the city, the Transit Tunnels and Warrens of Decay; Trade Town, a small but detailed home base; tons of NPC's and opposing explorers; an alien bestiary and guide to artifacts in the city. The dungeons tend to be small and modular; for example, the sprawling subway tunnels of level 1 lead to 6 mini-dungeons (20 rooms or so each) and a handful of junctions and smaller room complexes, making level 1 around 150 rooms, but geographically dispersed. My notes cover another 5 dungeon levels below 2 (levels 3-8) but I'll save those for a second installment if I ever get this first one out the door.
Play testing is invaluable! I have a bunch of trips coming up in July, but I really want to get more groups involved. I may run a neighborhood kids game on Thule to get more of it opened up, and may even join the G+ hangout crowd later in July (assuming I can swing another gaming night while maintaining the whole work-family-writing balance thing). I'm trying to put a late event on the schedule for Gencon, to allow a group of strangers into one of the remote sections of the first level. I'll drop a note here when it's confirmed in case any readers want to get in. I just remembered though, that I posted it for running Lamentations - wasn't there some bad blood between Gencon and LOTFP? Let's see if it gets kicked out by the machinery.
Meanwhile - expect to start seeing posts on Harrow Home Manor trickling out. I've discovered a thing about my creative cycle; I like to get those inspirational posts out early, lots of blah blah blah, and then let the ideas percolate and marinate for a while. It's important to write things down and keep a good notebook, and look at old ideas with a fresh set of eyes later. Inspirational posts for the Black City have been floating around the blog for well over a year before it kicked into high gear a few months ago. I'm going to start Harrow Home Manor simmering in a similar way, with the expectation that it will be properly seasoned and ready for cooking sometime early next year. And now all this talk of flavoring food is making me a bit hungry. I had just gotten back from a hike with the kids when I started writing this one - I needed to get some lunch! See you later.
Labels: Beedo, Black City Campaign, Harrow Home Manor
Black City Retainers
No plan survives contact with the enemy... or in this case, no campaign survives contact with the players, at least in its initial form. I've been busy revising a lot of my campaign tools this week to increase utility for the table top; all those random tables of which I was so proud are getting turned into spreadsheets to generate content in advance for faster use at the table.
I've converted the ship generator, name generator, hex content stocker, and just put together a simple spreadsheet for rolling up NPC retainers. Here's a snapshot or so of 20 retainers appropriate for a Viking themed game.
On the island of Thule, retainers become available a number of ways. Some men hire onto larger ships as rowers, sailing to Thule to contract out as mercenaries. Sometimes there is a falling out with one's own crew. And lastly, they're survivors of a failed party seeking to catch on with a new group.
Labels: Black City Campaign, Tools
Randomly Generated Viking Ships
Big thanks to those insightful comments from yesterday - it really helped cement my decision to pregenerate more content, both for my tabletop game and for the future manuscript. I like the idea of publishing the source tables in an appendix with some algorithms so a home DM can make their own content, too.
I put the excel programming in place and generated a few hundred sample ships yesterday - below is a table excerpt on how they look. For me personally, this gives me plenty of bones to improvise the rest; keep in mind that somewhere I have a chart with ship demographics - what's the level of a knarr captain versus a longship captain, what's the crew breakdown of level 0 guys, that kind of stuff (it might be out here, too, I'll look for the link). I also made a few hundred extra Viking names and personalities in case other names are needed. Next up - a "meat shields" type generator for Black City retainers, and then I'm going to program the hex content generators.
Click to Embiggen
Random Content and Speed During Play
One of the interesting things I'm learning during these early Black City sessions is the gap between good content generation tools and good content. A simple example - the group runs into some bandits, what's the name of the bandit leader? Which ship are they from?
It's Agnar. "Agnar Thorvaldson, or Agnar of Bergen? Oh, you meant Agnar the Sallow; good. Just glad it's not Agnar son of Skjolf. Old Skjolf already hates us."
The point being, there's a lot of ways to generate a good Viking name on the fly, I've built myself tables upon tables of tools to generate names, places, ship names, personalities, all these super flavorful things with the Viking details. (Some of them appeared in previous blog posts, like here: Viking names. There's a section on random tables on the Black City page).
Detail is important for this type of campaign, the setting demands lots and lots of easily referenced details. When the party gets into a scrum with Agnar Thorvaldson's bandits, it's important to know they have kin on the Angry Yrsa, one of the ships on the island. The party probably just made a handful of enemies in the other crew; this is the kind of stuff that's going to drive conflict in the campaign. "You run into another set of Viking bandits" is lazy and boring; "You run into another group from the Angry Yrsa" adds immediate excitement; the DM knows they'll take a penalty to the reaction roll because a party member killed Agnar the Sallow in a duel and the crew is spoiling for some payback.
Which brings me back to the original thought here - table top speed. I'm finding more and more that tools are great, but generating content before we sit down and play is even better. Having some huge lists of pre-generated names, ships, and so forth is proving to be best of all. Dice rolling the stuff got to be a drag, so now I'm programming it all into excel to generate premade lists (I'm really too lazy to reinstall mssql and do it all through an rdbms right now).
I know the dungeons have been interesting so far, but I'm hoping the group explores the ruined surface when they need a change of pace so I can see how the hex content creation plays. There's a finite number of hexes and I'm wondering if I should just number and auto-populate the hexes - it would play faster, but is less inspirational.
In a published version of the city, I'd probably include lists of premade content so a DM could sit down and play it 'right out of the box' with a list of premade ships, Viking groups, and so on - but include the raw tables in an appendix for additional creation and inspiration. What do you guys think?
And the question for fellow game masters - there's excitement generating content on the fly and forcing yourself to improvise, versus having it laid out in advance and not having to pause for a dice rolling sequence. Where's your sweet spot?
Labels: Black City Campaign, Theory
Black City Session 2: Head Games
Shamus, a Gaelic wizard
Agnar Beigarth, a Northman fighter
Irina Edvards, a fighter
Arthur the Fair (specialist), Bjorn Fjordrunner (fighter), Brick Bunnycracker (halfling)
New: Visin of Frey, a cleric; Galm - a mercenary; Twig-belly - a mercenary
Time for the group's second foray into the ruins of the Black City. It was a Sunday night, so we didn't have the full crew. Plus, the retainer Ulf Skullcrusher failed a loyalty check back at camp, and decided to try his luck with another group. They headed to Trade Town to try and hire some more retainers.
Trade Town is organized as a series of four long halls in a square, surrounded by a low berm of rock and dirt, forming a central yard. Two of the halls are reserved for the jarl that built the fort, Bergfinn, and his soldiers, while the other two are used as a trade hall and drinking hall. The group spent some time at the Njord Hall buying drinks and picking up the gossip.
A bit later, they stumbled out of the Njord Hall with a pair of newly hired, rugged looking mercenaries, Galm and Twig-belly; a fresh-faced priest of Frey, excited to be invited on a foray into the ruins; and a rumor that if you follow some of the tunnels under the city, you'll run into a section of cloudy mist in the tunnels, and that some deranged killers were living in the mist.
Out at the Well of Woe, the guards of the steaming hole confirmed the rumor about the mists. "Yeah, that's true; a tough group recently tried to pass through the mists, and said they were beaten back by axe wielding mad-men. It's only a few weeks into the season, but there are probably at least 6 crews down in the tunnels already, and it's not unheard of for a group to turn to banditry if they're not finding stuff. Keep your eyes open, and watch your backs."
After descent, the group returned to the room with the stone table and conducted another search, tapping the walls carefully, with guards clearly posted. The bodies of the dead vikings were gone. Shamus found a small sliding wall panel that he slid open with a dagger, revealing a half foot long quartz crystal wedged between two sockets; the center of the crystal was blackened and smoky. They pried the crystal out as loot, while the players wondered if it was a fuse.
Down one of the halls they passed a slightly open hatch with a flickering light; from behind the hatch came "We know you're out there, what do you want?" in Norse. After some 'pleasantries', they learned the guys in the room came over on the knarr, Angry Yrsa, and were planning to attack another group that limped back to a camp from the big tunnel carrying loot, but nursing injuries. "How about we team up to take those guys out and split whatever loot they found?" In the room, the two groups gauged the other by lantern light - the party was bringing eleven, the bandits had six members in rough leathers with spears and clubs.
This threw a real monkey wrench at the players - would they play the game as amoral murder hobos, teaming up with bandits to bash in the skulls of fellow explorers, or would they focus on exploration? There are no strong bonds between crews from distant places. We're not using alignment as a moral straightjacket, so everyone is basically neutral unless they use magic. It was a pretty interesting (and lively) discussion, but in the end, they voted 3-2 not to team up with the bandits and attack the other guys - for now, at least, they're focusing on exploration. "What are you, a bunch of milk-drinking children?", grumbled Thorbrandson, the bandit leader. "This is easy silver, and you'd rather go face death and monsters? Go on, get out of here you cowards". Shamus really wanted to Sleep them after that.
Not far from there, they passed the camp of the injured veterans. "Keep walking past this hatch, if you know what's good for you", came a hostile threat from beyond the cracked door. When the group warned the voice about the bandits not far from there, they got small thanks and a tip: "Be careful when you enter the mists. We ran into a group of mad-men up there, who attacked with axes from out of the mist. They have the 'dungeon madness', and can't be treated with". But the veterans never opened the hatch.
The last interesting thing was after exploring a few rooms and halls, they came to a dead end where a large metal box sat near the wall. It had a lid, and close inspection saw a bit of waxy seal holding the lid down. The metal on the box appeared to be lead, which would be worth something back at camp, but the players weren't keen on breaking the seal. "Hey Galm, this is our most likely source of treasure on this delve, how do you feel about popping the lid open with your knife?"
After flipping open the lid, Galm screamed and fell back, clutching his face. Twig-belly gasped in horror, "Did you see that? WTF!" Meanwhile, Galm twitched and whimpered on the ground, his head flopping back and forth.
"It was like a giant bug, it flew right out of the chest and hit Galm in the face, only it flew right *into* his face and then disappeared. This is totally messed up." Meanwhile, everyone now saw the thing left in the box - an alien looking skull, large almond-shaped eye sockets, small malign teeth, and a large hole in the middle of the forehead.
Galm sat up and seemed to be feeling better. "Blacked out there for a minute, but I'm feeling better now. Feeling better than I've been in a long time", he drawled, and flashed a wicked smirk. (It's probably nothing).
Time was late, so a couple of guys lugged the heavy box with the skull and they made their way out. "I don't think we're going to invite Galm along next time" seemed to be the popular opinion. They ended the night making idle conjecture whether an alien bug would be bursting out of Galm's head at some point, or whether the hole represented 'trepanning' and they should look for a drill back at camp and put a hole in Galm's head. I was amazed that it was one of the 11 year olds that brought up trepanning and started expounding about its use to relieve cranial swelling and migraines in prior times. We have some home schooled kids in the neighborhood, and you never know what oddball things they've picked up in their readings or watching history shows - that was pretty cool.
Return to Barsoom
Ock, Ohem, Oktei, Wies, Barsoom... the mystic phrase that returned John Carter to Mars.
I got back from a camping trip with the kiddos and the John Carter movie was waiting at home… good old Netflix. I enjoyed the film a lot - it's not a deep movie, but it is a rousing adventure tale, and it was delightful to see an influential early pulp story flickering on the screen. As a gamer who invests a significant amount of time into imaginary worlds, I found the motif of Carter's return to Barsoom particularly compelling.
Consider: when we first meet him in the story, Carter is a rootless Civil War veteran living with the ghosts of his family. There's a sense of anger and desperation. On Barsoom, however, Carter possesses super human strength and jumping ability; he wins the hand of a beautiful princess, unites a warring planet, and overthrows a tyrant. He is the "Dotar Sojat" of the Tharsk people. Is it any wonder he spends his fortune attempting to find another medallion to return to Barsoom, rather than live out the rest of his life on Earth?
That's the part that made for such a compelling metaphor for gaming. The campaign represents your own Barsoom, where players can forge their own roles as champions of the oppressed, or tyrannical warlords, or daring treasure hunters. The setting is an opportunity to forget about life in the cubicle, or office, or out on the job site, or whatever your 9 to 5 Monday through Friday gig requires. You get to project your consciousness to Barsoom for a few hours every time the DM kicks off the next game and the dice start rolling.
The other thing I can appreciate is how influential John Carter of Mars has been on post-Barsoom writers. The conceit of living an alternate life in a fantastic realms is echoed in stories like Cameron's Avatar film, or the Thomas Covenant fantasy novels, or the movie Total Recall; heck, the 1990 film Total Recall is practically an updated love letter to the earlier John Carter stories. (I can't speak if that's true for the original Philip K Dick story). I'm sure if I think on it further, I'll identify more stories that use the motif of a hero choosing a fantastic other-world over a mundane life on Earth. Here's an interesting question for the literary folks in the readership: how many stories predating Barsoom involve a main character discovering an amazing alternate world, losing it, and then spending their time attempting to return? I'm assuming the element of losing and returning to Barsoom figured in the original ERB stories.
In the meantime, good gaming, and may all your campaigns be so vivid and exciting!
Now get back to work. It's Monday.
Made of Gygaxium. Black City Report #1
We kicked off the Black City campaign last weekend, and I promised a game report. The quote of the night was this one, from Shamus:
DM: The hatch in front of you appears to be made out of an unknown metal.
Shamus: From now on, I shall call this metal… Gygaxium.
I might just take that on as an aspiration goal - ensure the megadungeon always incorporates a lot of pure "gygaxium". This other quote was a close second, one of our 10 year old players that groks the challenge of old school dungeon exploration:
Nogal: Playing classic D&D is like auditioning. Every time you survive, you make the cut for another week.
After Kolfina's throat was torn out by a hungry Gjenganer: Kolfina didn't pass her audition.
Mylar of Arabia, a scimitar wielding desert warrior
Brutok the Strong, a dwarf
Kolfina Insvarti, a halfling
Henchman:
Ulf Skullcrusher (specialist), Arthur the Fair (specialist), Ayerick the Young (fighter), Bjorn Fjordrunner (fighter), Skoldig (specialist), Irina Edvards (fighter), Brick Bunnycracker (halfling)
Characters were rolled, one sentence backgrounds were tossed out, and the group chose to journey to Thule on Isgerd's Fury, the sample ship I included in the player's handout (see it here, Isgerd's Fury). We upgraded Isgerd's Fury from a knarr (crew of 10-15) to a longship (crew of 30-40) because the party is so large. This gives them a lot of low-level shipmates as potential retainers, as well as a few high level NPC's with overall responsibility for the ship and gear. The party randomly determined a Viking homeland, which was established as Zealand - a large island off the coast of Jutland.
The Isgerd's Fury link above provides the description of arriving on Thule, getting oriented, and building the camp. They took a few minutes to look at some pictures of Svalbard and Spitsbergen island, the real-world inspirations for Thule. Then it was off to the Well of Woe, the most well known entrance to the dungeons. The players have the option of striking out overland, exploring the upper ruins, excavating, any of those things, but the dungeon seemed like a good idea for a quick jaunt.
The hike to the city involves passing by the smoky outpost of Trade Town, then a few miles along the fjord until the city comes into view. It's a sprawling basalt ruin that stretches a few miles along the inlet's coast. The north half is obscured by mist and cloud, and a few extant structures and towers jut skyward from the mountains of rubble. The trail descends down a hill until the party was walking among the towering piles of rubble, and then the group was at the plaza.
The Well of Woe is a 30' steaming hole in the center of a small plaza in the south of the city; nearby, a handful of soldiers maintain a guard picket in a small shelter. There was a bit of chatter with the guards, who charge a toll in return for letting explorers use their ropes and ladders to descend down the well.
At the bottom of the 30' drop was a large chamber that formed the end-point of a rounded, 20' wide tunnel that appeared to stretch into the distance beneath the city - a dark highway beneath the rubble streets. There were some side passages and a hatch in the chamber too.
Once the group was safely down, the soldiers quickly pulled up the rope ladders. "Make some noise, bang on metal, or blow a whistle when you need to come back up. And make sure you have a light - we won't drop a ladder if we can't see you!"
On the wall was a kind of schematic, looking a bit like this diagram here:
The group hypothesized it was some kind of tunnel map, but they can't be sure yet.
Faced with multiple passages and an oval hatch, they chose the hatch. One of the strong guys pried it open with a crowbar; it slid into the wall on a track, revealing a set of stairs leading up to a small chamber with another passage leading out.
The only thing in the chamber was a small stone table with a recessed surface, like a game table or pool table. They started searching (astutely leaving no one on guard duty) so of course they were surprised when a pair of Northmen stumbled up the stairs behind them. Only I lied! They weren't Northmen, they were hungry dead Northmen, each sporting mortal wounds that became hideously apparent when the monsters lurched into the light.
The halfling, Kolfina, was quickly killed as the monsters clawed and bit her, biting into her neck. Put that in the history books - Kolfina the Halfling was the first player character death in the Black City. The party rallied and hacked the dead men after a spate of horrible rolls kept the monsters in the fight longer than necessary.
Since we had combined character generation and pizza with the campaign kickoff, the night was getting late, so the group quickly found themselves back at the Well of Woe, whistling for the guards to drop a ladder. "That was quick!" said the guards.
My group likes to name their adventuring party, and it didn't take long for a new name to emerge. Vikings are the pirates of the dark ages, the island's modern day name is Spitsbergen, next thing you know, they're calling themselves The Spitsberg Pirates. What's the equivalent of "ahoy" or "shiver me timbers" in old Norse? Maybe "dead men tell no tales" would be more appropriate.
A Challenge For 5E
There was lots of recent chatter on the old school blogs about 'dissociated mechanics' and how this doomed 4E. The hanging question, is WOTC still doing the same thing in 5E?
I have a different requirement for 5E: I want a set of rules that support simulation of whatever fantasy world I'm building for my campaign.
I know the word "simulation" is loaded; I don't want a game that simulates real world physics. But I want the rules that define the game elements to follow some internal consistency, and apply equally to players and non-player characters and the world at large. I want a rules set that is coherent for simulating an interesting D&D world for placing adventures.
4E is littered with examples where the rules of the game lead to a game setting that has zero internal consistency or logic. Monsters have ridiculous armor classes that make them impossible for the ordinary inhabitants of the game world to damage them. Other monsters have 1 hit point each (as minions) and die when someone gives them a good push.
Just look at the subjective logic of treating dragons as "solo monsters" in some instances, or "elites" based on the combat role the DM wants them to possess, in the next. The monster has no objective reality in the setting; its role and mechanical footprint is completely subjective, and based only on how it's defined in relationship to the chosen ones, the player characters. I wouldn't be surprised if there were eventually dragon "minions", too.
I was stubborn with that game system - we gave it a long leash, trying multiple campaigns and getting deep into the 'paragon tier', against my better judgment. I drank multiple cups of the kool aid. I won't be nearly so gullible with 5E.
So this is my personal criteria for a successful 5E. The rules and mechanical bits need to present a world with internal consistency regardless of the presence of player characters. The mechanical styling of a 4E game world only made sense when viewed from the perspective of providing a perfectly balanced challenge for a set of player characters of superheroic stature with manifest destinies. It was basically West World, Future World, and any one of those Yul Brenner theme parks (Medieval World, Roman World). It drove me nuts.
I haven't looked that closely at 5E yet to know if it passes the test. We probably haven't seen enough regarding the roles of monsters and NPCs in the setting. I've heard the buzzword "bounded accuracy", which seems to mean The Mearls has abandoned scaling armor class and gone back to the older approach, where armor classes exist in a consistent range across the game setting. That's really a great first step. But I've also heard that level 1 characters have super high hit point totals and wield the crazy at-will powers. (Like, dude, where's my first level?). If NPC opponents have the same ridiculous hit points and the laser-beam clerics and the zap zap zap wizardy powers, then perhaps the system will have some internal logic. It might be a good system for gonzo high magic fantasy where all the clerics walk around shooting lasers out of their holy symbols and all the wizards shoot ice rays out of their fingers, and that's just how the world works.
I don't see that happening; I have to think the final version of 5E will keep the players as the super heroic chosen ones of destiny, with over-the-top abilities no one else in the game world seems to possess. This will probably mean I'll skip 5E entirely. I can live with some dissociated mechanics. I won't buy into another incoherent WOTC game that panders to power gamers. I truly hope to be proven wrong!
Labels: Edition Wars, Soap Box
House Rules for the Black City Campaign
The Black City marks our return to using the LOTFP rules for the table top game, and the first time breaking out the grindhouse edition with its adjusted XP totals and spell lists. New campaign, new rules set = chance to re-evaluate our common house rules.
Bind Wounds
Immediately after a combat, characters can perform first aid activities to recover 0-3 hit points (d4-1).
Rationale: hit points are vague and represent multiple factors - injuries, morale, fatigue. Giving characters the chance to swig some liquid courage, bandage injuries, catch their breath, etc, lets low level parties stay in the dungeon longer and frees up the cleric from always carrying Cure Light Wounds, especially in LOTFP where Turn Undead takes up a spell slot. Bind wounds does tend to act a bit like a 'healing surge'. If a 25% chance of failure is too low, it'd be easy to adjust this rule to 0-2 hit points (d4-2).
New Armor - Ring Mail
Ring mail, AC 15, cost 50sp, encumbers like chain mail.
In a dark ages campaign with little or no access to plate armor, I wanted more variety than just leather and chain, so I slotted ring mail in there as an intermediate (this category would also cover studded leather or scale mail as an alternative).
The Skald - New Specialist Skills
New skills:  Performance (1 in 6),  Lore (1 in 6)
If the bard is able to perform for an audience for at least a half hour, he can add his performance skill as a charisma modifier to any reaction or morale roll for the audience members, as long as the roll isn't made more than a day after the performance.
Whenever the bard encounters an item with legendary significance, this skill may be used to try and identify the item and recall a piece of lore or history about it that would exist in song or poem.
These two skills for specialists allow someone to tweak their specialist to cover the role of Skald, the Norse equivalent of the Celtic bard. Since many of the opponents in the upper ruins of the city are fellow Vikings, the extra reaction roll adjustment from performances would be valuable, along with the boon to retainer morale. And I've always liked legend and lore as an alternative to the magic user spell Identify for magic items.
Two-Weapon Fighting
A fighting style with an off-hand weapon provides a +1 AC bonus versus one melee opponent only.
This rule is one I'm still considering; in the game, one of the players asked what benefit could they get from dual-wielding. LOTFP doesn't have an explicit two-weapon fighting rule, which is odd because you figure the fencing styles of Early Modern involved the off-hand quite a bit - dagger or gauche, for instance.
I'm thinking the off-hand weapon provides a +1 to AC like a shield, but only against a single opponent in melee; the shield is still better when fighting multiple opponents, and an off-hand weapon provides no bonus against missile fire. In LOTFP, the shield provides a +2 AC vs missile. So there's no reason why someone should take two-weapon fighting over a shield, unless it's for encumbrance purposes. But if style and theme are important, there's at least a small benefit to being a dual-wielder. You do not get multiple attacks.
Strength Bonus and Damage
The strength damage applies to both to-hit rolls and damage.
Yes - default LOTFP removes the strength bonus for damage and applies it on the to-hit roll only. You'd think I had peed in the player's drinks when I announced that one. "Who is this Raggi guy, he needs a smack in the back of the head", grumbled one of the guys. How many folks out there like a rule where strength doesn't improve weapon damage dealt? Check out the new poll on the right.
I don't know if Jim has come out and defended the removal of the strength bonus; from the DM's perspective, the world is usually full of monsters that are stronger than people, and they don't frequently get a strength bonus added when they're using weapons. You can avoid the 'how strong is the monster' debate by having all weapons deal base damage.
I find it nigh impossible to run any rules set straight up without wanting to make a small tweak here or there to better fit my vision for a home game. This is the smallest package of house rules I've used so far. Common ones I'm keeping out for now include a fighter cleave rule, a critical hit house rule, clerical 'convert any spell to cure light wounds', and damage by character class.
Labels: Black City Campaign, Rules
Entering the Land of the Midnight Sun
The day that seemed like it would never come has arrived. The Black City is alive. Alive! Some of you have been reading random ideas and concepts for this campaign for well over a year, since I started musing about it early last year. Friday night, dice were rolled, blood was spilled, and the campaign was launched.
We had our full crew present, which meant 7 players (five adults and two kids). The guys went 3d6 in order and rolled 5 sets of attributes. They chose the best set for their character, the second best for their retainer, and the remaining 3 would be additional retainers and henchman that could be hired back in camp.
I really liked Chris K's random LOTFP equipment generator (you can find it on the Hill Cantons blog), so I created an altered version for use during character generation in the Black City, Ye Olde Faste Pack - for Vikings.
When all was said and done we ended up with the following characters:
Henchman included Ulf Skullcrusher (specialist), Arthur the Fair (specialist), Ayerick the Young (fighter), Bjorn Fjordrunner (fighter), Skoldig (specialist), Irina Edvards (fighter), Brick Bunnycracker (halfling). The group was a mix of Northmen, ex-thralls, and foreigners that have joined a Northmen adventuring party in return for crewing a ship.
We had enough time at the back end of the session to introduce the characters to Thule and let them make a first, tentative foray into the city, descending into the Well of Woe to begin exploring the under-city.
Their noise and light attracted the shambling corpses of some dead explorers, and they were taken by surprise while everyone was searching a chamber not far from the entrance way. The city claimed its first player character. I'll get a regular game report up later in the week.
The other thing I did in advance was to take all my manuscript notes and dump them into a word doc (so I could put in a hyperlinked table of contents for quicker access at the table). Holy crap, the first installment of the campaign setting is already weighing in at like 45,000 words, 90+ pages. What a load of bloated hot air. Oh well, now the real work starts. It's good to finally put theory into practice and start seeing what works and what's unusable at the table. Wish me luck, and I'll endeavor to regale you all with captivating tales of Vikings and mayhem as we embark on this exciting new setting.
Labels: Beedo, Black City Campaign, Game Reports
Liao Now Brown Cow
The exciting conclusion of our last Trail of Cthulhu game. By way of recap, the basic situation was this: ritual murders were happening around New York City, and the thread that tied them together was that both victims possessed a book called The Invisible Path; in fact, they were obsessed with it. It seemed the killer was destroying or stealing the victim's copies.
A visit to the university revealed The Invisible Path was the last book of poetry self-published by a horrid 19th century poet, Martin Bellgrave, shortly before he died. It featured otherworldly images of the primordial earth. But copies are hard to find! An eccentric Providence industrialist, Lewis Holland, had been buying all available copies for the last 20 years. The characters found themselves on a train to Providence, both to visit the millionaire Holland, and to ask questions at a rare book dealer in Providence, Gollam & Sons.
When we left off, the group was getting ready for dinner at Lewis Holland's sprawling mansion. A burglar had broken in some weeks ago, and Mr Holland's hired gumshoe would be joining everyone for dinner. Meanwhile, the party's criminal, O'Grady, had secretly filched a copy of The Invisible Path from Holland's secret library, and took some time before dinner to quickly read the notorious volume of poetry.
O'Grady's world changed. By the time he turned the last page, he was seeing the red primordial sky out the window and hearing the slurping sound of blasphemous slimes slithering across a humid plain. O'Grady stumbled downstairs for dinner, pale and shaken, as if he had seen a ghost.
Over dinner, conversation turned towards the efforts of Francis Moon, the private detective hired by Lewis Holland. "I've been unable to recover any of your books, Mister Holland. Nor have I been able to find any more copies of The Invisible Path. Some kook out there is knocking off owners and stealing it from libraries."
Holland started ranting about how important it was to make sure no on else read that horrid book. "I knew Martin Bellgrave when I was a youth in the 1870's, and he's the greatest embodiment of evil I've ever met in my life. It's a small thing, for a wealthy man like me, but I've made it my crusade to eradicate the memory of Martin Bellgrave and destroy every copy of his book ever published".
O'Grady had been experiencing strange, distracting thoughts… like there was another personality in his mind. "I've been dreaming of red skies above a torrid primordial jungle". Holland went bizonkers, since he knew O'Grady had read the book by some of the phrases he was dropping. "How is this possible that people are still finding and reading copies of The Invisible Path, when it's my life's work to eradicate this book?"
Meanwhile, one of our absent players was back, taking on the role of Meg Meadows, a forensic scientist that works with the SCD. Meg was on the train to Providence and arrived the next morning. Meg had news from the city; there was another ritual murder the previous day, and it was someone that had taken The Invisible Path out of the library recently. She was able to get the copy from NY public library and had read the book on the way to Providence. She too was experiencing slight hallucinations, had found thoughts of unknown origin streaming across her consciousness, and dreamed of a red sky.
The next day, Francis Moon was off to Arkham at Lewis Holland's behest, to see if he could make an offer for the university's copy of The Invisible Path. The party suspected Moon; the detective was a bit creepy and his stories placed him in the same vicinity of each crime. O'Grady decided to go with Moon on the train to Arkham to keep tabs on the detective.
Everyone else decided to go to the ruined house of Martin Bellgrave. Bellgrave died in a house fire in the 1870's, and the property had lain fallow for many years. Holland now owned it, and let it continue to crumble into overgrown vegetation. As they walked the grounds, Meg had a bizarre experience, like a time-slip. She found herself in the mansion as it was 60+ years ago, Victorian décor and Oriental carpets in a shadowy study, where Martin Bellgrave sat in a high backed chair and spoke with her.
This session featured heavy roleplaying, and writing about dialogue in a game report is yawnstipating. I'll convey the facts as briefly as I can. Meg learned that Bellgrave was literally a figment of her imagination, a piece of her brain that began to think like the author after reading his book of poetry. Rereading the book and visiting the ruins strengthened the connection. The shade of Bellgrave explained how he experimented with strange drugs from the Orient, like the mythical Liao Drug, which unfettered his consciousness from the modern age and allowed him to cast his vision back into prehistory. He learned the primal tongue, a sorcerous language that allowed him to tap into the racial knowledge of humanity and implant thoughts and ideas directly into his readers. He poured his mind and soul into his poetry. This explained some of the gibberish littered throughout the book.
More importantly, he explained how there are things that live in the angles of time, lean and athirst, that can follow a dreaming consciousness back to the modern age and consume it. The man that sold him the Liao Drug warned of this hazard, but it was worth the price of immortality through art. Meg and the other characters had noticed strange lights in the sky, like distant fireworks slowly getting closer, and Bellgrave confirmed he too had seen such things after his Liao-induced trips to the distant past.
The players eventually snapped Meg out of her apparent trance and learned about her intense inner vision with the ghost of Martin Bellgrave. They completed their investigation of the ruins, concluding that the mansion was destroyed by other-worldly heat that fused rock into glass and left radioactive traces, even 60 years later. The party did some other things during the day, errands and other investigation-related snooping, returning to Holland's mansion near dinner. When Waltham the butler met them, he indicated that the master was in the study with Francis Moon. The group was surprised to hear Moon was back from Arkham already - it was supposed to be an overnight trip. Where was O'Grady?
Holland was dead in the study, his blood cooling on the floor, his gouged eyeballs propped on the desk. Moon leveled his pistol at the group and asked them to come in, slowly. "I'm going to have to kill Meg", he pointed out. "I am the real Martin Bellgrave inside Moon, and when all the other figments have been destroyed, I can live fully again. Everyone who has read the book must die." O'Grady was dead already, dumped in a private train compartment on his way to Arkham. (Never send someone off alone with the serial killer). There were a few half hearted attempts to go for weapons, only to be shot by Moon as the thought crossed their mind; there was a line of clues earlier in the adventure that Moon was somewhat lucky, psychic, and uncanny, and being possessed by the ghost of the dead sorcerer increased his prescience.
The ending was a bit deus ex… the Flames of Tindalos, the hungry things from beyond space and time, foreshadowed as those ever present fires in the sky, arrived in our time continuum and began consuming Francis Moon to destroy the consciousness of Bellgrave they were following. The party watched as the flaming motes darted around his body, igniting his flesh while he writhed in torment. At one point, Moon's personality resurfaced, "I'm not him, I'm not him…" but it was too late for Moon.
The flames retreated but were still in the night sky, seeking the final threads of Bellgrave's consciousness. Meg realized that she still had a ghost of Bellgrave in her head, and it was inevitable that they would catch up with her soon. Snyder handed her his pistol. "Better to go out with a bullet, than writhing in pain like Moon".
At this point, the party came upon an awesome solution, and it was really my favorite part of the adventure. Both Trevor (the occult dilettante) and Father Vinny (the exorcist with a background in psychology) knew of a hypnotist in the city capable of suppressing memories. The adventure ended with Meg building a brick-encased wall in her brain through hypnosis, Cask of Amontillado style, where she sealed in the screaming shade of Bellgrave and all that happened the past few days, one brick at a time. She awoke with no memories of the experience. "Why do we have our suitcases and travel clothes? Did we just get back from a trip?"
Meanwhile, the others wonder… will the mental prison keep Bellgrave suppressed?
They put all the confiscated copies of The Invisible Path into a vault. They knew, if they ever needed to consult with a sorcerer from the 1870's, they could read the book. Bellgrave knew a handful of useful Mythos spells and had a fair store of Mythos knowledge. But the Flames of Tindalos would rejoin the hunt.
I really enjoyed this adventure, with its theme of viral knowledge transmitted through reading a book, and the idea that consuming art can change the thought patterns of the viewer. Good stuff.
*Liao Now Brown Cow: this was O'Grady's player, Adam, getting into the spirit of bad poetry when he learned his thought patterns were channeling the dead poet, and he started stringing bad rhymes together.
Labels: Game Reports, SCD, Trail of Cthulhu
Nothing But 6's
OD&D isn't my platonic ideal for D&D; I started with the 1981 Red Box, and the Basic and Expert D&D books are still the first love. But if there's one global rule I'd consider applying to BX or a retro clone, it'd be to get rid of variable hit dice and use nothing but 6 sided dice - the glorious d6.
I have bags and bags of d6's, tons of them from years playing Axis & Allies and similar games. Consider the simplicity an all d6 game provides for encounters and combat. 10 orcs? No problem, roll 10 D6's at the start of combat - there are your hit points. The same 10 dice become your 10 HD monster - you track hit points by removing dice or adjust values as the creature takes damage. Always rolling hit points at the table and tracking them right on the dice is immensely appealing; I'd never write down hit points again.
It seems easy enough to put some class variability into player HD using d6's; perhaps it's as easy as fighters get a +1, magic users get a -1. The only thing holding me back for now is unwillingness to get rid of variable weapon damage. The extreme example your hear about 'from the old days' is a group arming themselves with iron spikes and rocks (everything does a d6!) but there's also a concern with 2-handed weapons; I've seen house rules like exploding 6's for 2-handed weapons, or double dice for 2-handed weapons, or a simple +1 to damage for 2-handers.
I haven't talked to my players about this secret dream of an all d6 D&D game. The allure of handfuls of square dice runs directly contra to the baroque mystique of using the funny sided polyhedrals.
Labels: Rules
Turning One's Thoughts to Westeros
The second season of HBO's Game of Thrones is in the books. My wife has been pestering me to read the latest book, A Dance with Dragons, so I started it last week. Apparently 'big things happen', and she's been biting her tongue not to drop spoilers, but is insistent on discussing it. So now I'm reading it. One of the regulars in the gaming group is getting caught up on the first season and just started reading the books as well. It's natural to consider if you'd run a D&D game in a setting like Westeros.
There won't be any spoilers here, I'll just be discussing A Game of Thrones in general terms. The stories have a number of engaging elements; they follow the rise to fame and infamy of the scions of various noble houses in the fictional land of Westeros during a civil war. The king dies in the first book with a contested heir and the novels relate the chaos in the aftermath. No one has any plot immunity. Life in Westeros can be nasty, brutish and short, and main characters frequently get offed. From that perspective, there is always anticipation of 'what will happen next' when reading GRR Martin.
Westeros itself is very familiar. The map always seemed to me a fantastic version of England, stretched to the size of a continent. Hadrian's Wall is replaced by the gigantic ice wall, separating the settled areas from the wild north. Folks have commented that the war between the Starks and Lannisters is reminiscent of the war between the Yorks and Lancasters; the names share more than a similar phonetic cadence.
The fantastic elements in Westeros are subdued so as not to overwhelm the human element of the conflicts. There are hints of The Others, ice-born undead beyond the great wall, and legends of a time of dragons, but most of the main characters are disinterested in magic or stories. Certainly these fantastic elements have gotten more prevalent as the series has progressed.
How would Westeros work as a D&D setting? The archetypical career of the D&D character, as an explorer and dungeon delver, doesn't seem to have a place in the literary version of the setting. There are scant mentions of ruins, and there's certainly no freeman profession of "professional adventurer" the way we see it in more typical D&D worlds. The literary version wouldn't seem to support wealth through salvage. Mercenaries, yes, but not gold-claiming monster-slayers. Characters in A Game of Thrones rise to power through politics and feats of arms. Wifey was telling me - Oh c'mon, you could put old ruins beyond the Ice Wall, or beneath Harrenhall Castle, or on one of the many islands.
Why not just use a standard D&D setting and add a layer of politics and sheer bloody mindedness? Chances are your D&D setting already has some rulers who were previously adventurers, and a D&D setting assumes it's common for self-made rulers to rise to prominence after starting their careers as dungeon-sacking adventurers.
However, I can think of some things to strip out of D&D to make it fit the theme. I'd de-emphasize alignment. The question of right and wrong is highly subjective in A Game of Thrones, and a sympathetic case can be made for each side. The vast majority of monsters need to be removed as a force in the world. It's fine if you have some isolated monsters in the ruins or on the frontier, but there are no apparent global monster threats that would trigger the human kingdoms to unite; there's nothing to distract the nobles from beating on each other. Many D&D worlds follow the Tolkien model of the big bad evil guy, providing a rallying cry for all the 'free peoples' to band together for all mankind and sing the campfire songs. Not in Westeros.
I'm ambivalent about the degree of magic. Westeros is seemingly low magic; there are few flashy spells or planar entities or magic weapons getting swung around. The gods seem distant and remote, but there is evidence of magic-working priests and priestesses. There's even a fair amount of 'raise dead' that happens in the stories, although the results aren't necessarily comfortable or desirable… more like revenants.
I've been using a list of campaign criteria for a good D&D setting to help the analysis, here's how it shakes out vis a vis Westeros:
The List:
Adventures and Frontiers, Autonomy, Dungeons, XP for Gold, Treasure and Magic Items, Classes and Levels, NPC Classes and Levels, Alignment, High Magic, Humanoids and Monsters, The End Game, Demi-Humans, Clerical Magic, Vancian Magic
We've already said the setting would need to be altered by adding the ruins of prior civilizations to support an adventurer class, autonomous explorers, XP for gold, recovery of treasure and lost magic, and so on. (Valyrian steel!). Plenty of the rulers and main characters appear to be tough, high level characters, in game terms, so there's no problem there, and the standard D&D end-game of rising to power and claiming a domain works very well here. Alignment needs to be removed or face an adjustment, and humanoids and monsters must be marginalized (same for demi-humans). The political conflicts are human vs human, there's no joining hands with the friendly elves to fight Sauron or Iuz or Tzass Tamm. I'm ambivalent about low versus high magic, but tend to think low magic would work better in terms of flavor, whereas high magic would require less tweaking of the game engine.
What do you think? Have you tried playing a D&D game in Westeros, or borrowing ideas and themes from A Game of Thrones into your game?
Labels: Literature, The Junkyard
D&D Economics in the Early Modern
A recent theme here has been evaluating alternative historical settings for suitability in D&D campaigns - I was articulating criteria for a setting, and making some notes on adjustments for moving D&D to the early modern. One thing I postulated was that it would be necessary to alter the D&D end-game, perhaps removing standard benefits like where a fighter gains martial followers or a cleric gains the ability to build a reduced price church and attract religious soldiers. Many of the commentators pointed out historical examples of conquerors in the 17th century, and brought me around to the line of thinking that a 17th century fantasy game should be able to support self-made conquerors, too.
The economics of domain rulership go hand in hand with building armies and conquering territories. The ACKS game (Adventurer Conqueror King) is my favorite development of economics and the D&D end-game, so I dropped a line over on the ACKS forum on how one would adjust the default economic assumptions of ACKS for use in the post-Renaissance years. Here's what Alex, the lead designer, had to say about adapting ACKS to the later period:
In terms of trade/commerce, you don't need to change much. The mercantile system in ACKS is more akin to the Ancient Roman and/or Renaissance trade levels, anyway. Medieval trade was substantially less prevalent than ACKS would suggest.
In terms of land, you should increase the land value of peasants by 1-3gp per peasant to reflect improved agricultural techniques. That in turn will make your lords richer, which will allow for larger armies (30 Years War style), or more investment in cities, infrastructure, science, and so on.
There may be some experts on the Early Modern period with more specific details. My sense is that as long as you stay before the Industrial Revolution you'll be fine.
It's a simple adjustment that will lead to building larger armies in a more populous time, so I thought folks in the wider audience would find that interesting too. An open question involves adjusting the standard mass combat systems to account for muskets and cannons, but I'll worry about that when we get there.
Slow posting week here at the Lich House; I've been spending a lot of time making notes on Harrow Home Manor and getting the Black City ready for the next campaign, and that cuts into my blogging time. (I wasn't kidding when I said Harrow Home Manor would be a long term thing). It looks like my group won't finish the current Cthulhu adventure this weekend, but otherwise we'll be ready to kick off adventuring in the Black City immediately after. The developed scope includes a sprawling island hex crawl, detailed exploration of the ruins, maps and keys for all of the extant surface structures, the first couple of dungeon levels, and an interesting trade town. I'm sure there are things that look good on paper or seemed great when I thought them up, but are going to absolutely bomb on the table, and I'm sure there will be surprises too. Man, I'm looking forward to posting some reports on that place!
Labels: ACKS, Black City Campaign, Harrow Home Manor

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Невья́нское водохрани́лище (пруд Невьянский) — водохранилище на реке Нейве, в Невьянском городском округе Свердловской области. Водоём создан как заводской пруд Невьянского завода в 1701 году и является (наряду с Алапаевским водохранилищем) одним из двух старейших водохранилищ области.

География

Плотина водохранилища расположена на реке Нейве в центральной части Невьянска. На правом берегу у плотины — гора Лебяжка, левый в основном пологий. Берега в черте города застроены, в средней части покрыты лесом, имеются участки полей. На берегах водоёма располагаются: г. Невьянск; посёлки: Ребристый, Федьковка и Невьянка. Кроме Нейвы, на которой расположено водохранилище, в него впадают: река Северная Шуралка (слева), образующая залив в верховьях, Поскока (справа) в средней части, а также ряд менее крупных речек и ручьёв.

Гидрологические характеристики
Плотина водохранилища имеет высоту 9 метров, длину 300 метров, ширину 30 метров. Отметка гребня плотины (высота над уровнем моря) 238,5 метра. Площадь водосбора водохранилища — 803 км². Параметры (при НМУ): объём 25,6 млн м³, площадь 7,65 км², отметка вод 236,6 метров. Длина водохранилища составляет около 12 км, максимальная ширина до 2 км. Средняя глубина чуть более 3-х метров и лишь возле плотины достигает 10 метров.

Невьянское водохранилище включено в Перечень, устанавливающий индивидуальную разработку правил использования перечисленных в нём водохранилищ. Перечень утверждён «Распоряжением Правительства Российской Федерации от 14 февраля 2009 года № 197-р "Об утверждении перечня водохранилищ, в отношении которых разработка правил использования водохранилищ осуществляется для каждого водохранилища"».

История
К сооружению Невьянского пруда приступили в марте 1701 года. Река Нейва была перегорожена дерево-земляной плотиной; при сооружении как самой плотины, так и водоотводных труб, использовался традиционный местный строительный материал — лиственница. В плотине было устроено два отверстия — прореза. Так называемый «вешнячий» прорез использовался для спуска воды во время половодья, а рабочий прорез подавал воду к водяным колёсам. Размеры плотины: около 200 метров в длину и до 30 метров в ширину. Завод начал работу, однако в 1703 году плотину прорвало паводком. Восстановить её удалось лишь в 1704 году под руководством плотинного мастера Леонтия Злобина. При этом плотина была расширена и укреплена, а рабочих прорезов устроено два. После прорезов вода отводилась по двум водоводам (так называемые «лари»): один — для обслуживания доменного корпуса, длиной свыше 80 метров, с двумя ответвлениями-колодцами для мехов домны, второй же — для молотовых фабрик, имевший длину 200 метров, с 17-ю колодцами.

В дальнейшем плотина была усовершенствована. Прорезов стало четыре: «один вешняшный, два определены для действия доменной и молотовых, и один для пильной машины … в некоторых местах у прорезов утверждены для большей прочности чугунные стойки». Тело плотины также выложили чугунными «свинками», а возле четырёх прорезов — серым камнем. В начале XIX века, по описанию пермского краеведа Н. С. Попова, Невьянский пруд имел длину 8 с половиной вёрст (свыше 9 км), а ширину около 750 саженей (около 1600 м). Этот облик водохранилище и плотина сохраняли до начала XX века.

Кроме обеспечения работы заводских механизмов, пруд использовался и для судоходства: грузовые коломенки доставляли на завод железную руду, древесный уголь и другие материалы.

В 1969 году плотина прошла полную реконструкцию: шлюзы водосброса стали железобетонными, тело плотины также укреплено бетоном, на нём построили кирпичное четырёхэтажное здание.

Флора и фауна
Прибрежная растительность представлена осоками и камышом, отмечены также кувшинка белая, занесённая в Красную книгу Свердловской области, и кубышка жёлтая. В водоёме обитают щука, карась, окунь, лещ, чебак. В верховьях гнездятся водоплавающие птицы.

Охранный статус
В 2001 году Постановлением Правительства Свердловской области от 17.01.2001 г. № 41-ПП «Об установлении категорий, статуса и режима особой охраны особо охраняемых природных территорий областного значения и утверждении перечней особо охраняемых природных территорий, расположенных в Свердловской области» пруду присвоен статус гидрологического памятника природы областного значения. Площадь памятника 850 га. В Паспорте Государственного памятника природы охраняющей организацией определено УМП «Управление жилищно-коммунального хозяйства» города Невьянска. В 2005 году произведены работы по очистке дна водохранилища. Памятником природы объявлены также выходы серпентинитов на восточном берегу водоёма.

Данные водного реестра
По данным государственного водного реестра России водохранилище относится к: Иртышскому бассейновому округу, водохозяйственный участок реки Нейва — от истока до Невьянского гидроузла; речному подбассейну реки Тобол; речному бассейну реки Иртыш.

Код объекта в государственном водном реестре — 14010501621411200010844.

Примечания

Бассейн Нейвы
Водохранилища Невьянского городского округа
География Невьянска
Памятники природы Свердловской области
Гидрологические памятники природы

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


What Does It Mean To Be Civilized . . .
I hadn't thought much about what it means to be civilized. I sort of took it for granted that I was civilized and living in a civilized culture. Then I stumbled upon the following quote that stopped me in my tracks.
"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
Please Be Yourself Today . . .
Interesting concept for sure and very thought provoking.
Love it Alan. Thanks for today's message. BTW, I just made a physical therapy appt. for next week at United Therapy Network and they are located in the US Bureau of Indian Affairs building on E. Tachevah Dr.! I'll take a look at what else is there when I go.
Why oh why did we not follow their wisdom and adapt their ways. What were we afraid of?


Goddess Shirkai Devi, also referred as Ma Shirkai, is a manifestation of Mother Goddess and is worshipped mainly in Maharashtra. She is a village deity. The main temples dedicated to the Goddess are located in Kolhapur and neighboring districts in Maharashtra.
Goddess Shirkai Devi is a fierce form of Goddess Shakti. The murti of Goddess has eight arms and is depicted as killing a buffalo demon. She depicts the characteristics of Durga, Kali and Chamunda.
Shirkai Devi removes darkness caused by Adharma. She upholds righteousness by protecting those who practice Dharma.


VMware's Network Virtualization Platform, NSX, is an immensely powerful technology that can transform a datacenter's infrastructure and streamline network service delivery across the enterprise. NSX's scope, scale, and capability will easily impress techies, CCIE's, and IT stakeholders alike. NSX changes the topology of a traditional hardware-bound network by eliminating the dependency on all that "intelligence" baked into proprietary hardware. Instead, the logic and associated services are delivered through a software control plane. Separating the control and data planes effectively reduces the physical network to a glorified IP packet forwarder.
By now you've probably heard all the hype around the 5.1 releases of VMware's vSphere and vCloud platforms – and the vCloud 5.1 Suite, which bundles the latest versions of several VMware key IaaS-focused technologies and delivers a comprehensive cloud solution. The suite comes in 3 flavors – Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise.
If you're an existing (active) customer of any of these products, there's an upgrade and/or entitlement path to the suite for you – and it's highly recommended that you take advantage of it. Or, at the very least, you can upgrade your individual products to 5.1 as you ponder the suite. Whether or not you choose to upgrade and take advantage of the latest and greatest features is up to you. But if you're looking for increased scale, performance, efficiency, and capability while taking advantage of end-to-end advancements in VMware's leading cloud technologies, then I would place upgrade at the top of your to-do list. (some of my peers suggest I'm drinking the Kool-Aid via fire hose….really?). Learn more about the suite here: http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vcloud-suite/overview.html.
The attached guide will walk you through, in detail, the upgrade steps and procedures for moving to vCloud Suite 5.1.
I spend a lot of time discussing VMware's vCloud solution stack to many different customers, each with varying objectives when it comes to their cloud journey. The majority of them fall under two groups – Group A) those who know what they want and where to get it and Group B) those who think they know what they want and have been shopping for the "right" solution since before cloud hit the mainstream – one "cloud bake-off" after another while changing requirements in real-time. Can you guess which ones meet their objectives first? Hint: it's the same group that delivers IaaS to their enterprise and/or customers using proven technologies and trusted relationships in the time it takes the other to host a bake-off.
Are you ready for Cloud?
Strategy – Aligning business needs with IT capability.
Process – Streamlining and automating processes to achieve business agility.
Architecture – Establishing an enterprise architecture for this new IT infrastructure.
Technology – Designing and deploying your technology infrastructure from virtualization to cloud.
People and Governance – Creating the roles and skills necessary to ensure company-wide adoption, and the accountability framework and policies for stakeholder collaboration.


HINTON, Harwood Perry 89, of Midland, Texas, passed away on September 6, 2016, in his home, surrounded by his loved ones. Harwood was born in Irving, Texas, on March 26, 1927, to Harwood Perry Hinton, Sr., and Willie Mae Abbott Hinton. He graduated from Irving High School and continued on to receive a BA in History from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA in History from Columbia University, and PhD in History from the University of Wisconsin. A United States Army veteran, Harwood was drafted by Uncle Sam in 1950 and served in Japan. When he returned to civilian life in Texas, he taught junior high history in Odessa. On June 16, 1955, he married Mary Ann Brookshire. They had three children and were married for forty-two years. After Ann died in 1997, he later married Diana Davids Olien of Midland on May 14, 2005. On receiving his PhD, Harwood accepted an assistant professorship at Texas A&M University, teaching there one year before accepting a position at the University of Arizona at Tucson in 1961. He would be a professor of history there for the next thirty years, but he also became editor of the scholarly journal "Arizona and the West", which under his editorial leadership, became a leading periodical in the history of the American West. While in that position, he was one of the founders of the Western History Association, in which he took an active part for many years. Harwood's own scholarship focused on the lives of Civil War General John Ellis Wool and southwestern cattle dealer John Chisum. An expert on the history of the American Southwest, he was a consultant for Hollywood Western movie makers. But Harwood was most devoted to mentoring his many students. He was always ready to suggest how they might develop new historical topics and insights, and how they could find untapped historical resources. Because of his unlimited generosity with his time, many of his students became teachers and scholars, publishing a host of books and articles. Countless others came to share Harwood's love of the history of the American Southwest. In 1991 Harwood retired from the University of Arizona, and he and Ann relocated to Austin, Texas. Once settled in Austin, Harwood became one of the editors of "The New Handbook of Texas", compiled by the Texas State Historical Association. He was a life member of the Association, as well as of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. In both Tucson and Austin, he was an active participant in the Civil War Roundtable. Harwood left Austin for Midland, Texas, when he married Diana Davids Olien on May 14, 2005. In Midland he continued his research and writing, completing his biography of General John Wool. He continued to mentor younger scholars, helping them see their research into print, and going to meetings of the West Texas Historical Association, of which he was a past president and board member, and the Conference on Big Bend Studies. A confirmed "people person", he loved visiting with his many friends at historical conferences. Harwood is preceded in death by his parents, Harwood and Willie Mae Hinton; his brothers, James Floyd Hinton and Thomas Ross Hinton; his wife Ann, and his son, John Harwood Hinton. Harwood is survived by his wife of eleven years, Diana Davids Hinton; his two children, Mary McAdow and James Hinton; his step-daughter, Christina Olien Bosco; his grandchildren, Anthony Cox, Madeline Cox, Mary Ann Cox, Roxanne Hinton and Charles Hinton; his step-grandchild, Sharon Victoria Bosco and many other family members and friends. The Funeral Service will be held at St. Nicholas' Episcopal Church, 4000 W. Loop 250 N. Midland, Texas on Tuesday, September 13, 2016 at 1:30 p.m., with Father David Huxley officiating. Burial will follow on Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at Laurel Land Cemetery in Dallas, Texas at 11:00 a.m.. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be given to the American Diabetes Association, the John H. Hinton Library Endowment at the Cushing Library of Texas A&M University, or the St. Nicholas Episcopal Church Memorial Fund. The family wishes to express their deepest thanks and gratitude to the staff of Hospice of Midland and Visiting Angels, as well as to the many Midland friends who have offered their love and support.