Blair's Lifeblog

or "It's My Turn To Make One Of These Posts..."

In addition to a full time gig as a Lead Hand Mechanical Insulator in the construction industry, I'm currently engaged in "academic upgrading" involving 3 hours of classes Monday through to Thursday nights in preparation to pursuing a Physics degree; this is in addition to having a home life with Her Nibs, commencing band practices, and being an insomniac. Obviously this is a weak sauce burden in comparison to full-time studies or being a parent, but it is a huge adjustment from a leisurely lifestyle of reading Jack Vance novels; listening to records; bong rips; working on dungeon maps; playing video games; and the like, and come mid-week I've been coming up exhausted. While doing some exercises in preparation for Monday's exam, my math skills took a turn for the "Chris Farley-esque..."

I'm still doing the D&D & -ishes, DMing, playing, mapping, writing; and I'm just waiting on a couple of pieces of artwork before laying out The Jewel Throne. I'm also enthused to have lined up an "administrator figure" to handle the administration of handling the Doctors Without Borders donations.

Regarding Algol, the Babbling King is waiting, muttering...

And local Red Boxer and all-around awesome dude Johnstone is running an Algol hack of Apocalypse World; I'm stoked to see what ensues with that.

Anyways, posting will likely be sporadic for a bit; come mid-June some schedule changes will be implemented that will free up some of my time & energy. Right now, I get to sleep!

Credit Where Credit Is Due, Other Neglected Notes and Further Zigguratitude

1. A while ago I posted my "100 NPC(s) Table." I feel terrible for neglecting to mention/credit how much of an inspiration Zak Smith's "Hidden Traits of NPCs" tables was. #99 is my favorite!

2. After I posted about my appreciation for Morten Braten's Ancient Kingdoms: Mesoptomia, the admirable Melan put a boot up my ass for neglecting to mention XP1: The Spider God's Bride And Other Tales, an excellent 3.5 edition traditional Sword & Sorcery resource and non-sucky adventure path easily usable with any version/edition.

3. While I was discussing Mesopotamian D&D, I should have also mentioned Chgowiz' yet unreleased "Land of Two Rivers/Tomb of Hulkursag." The crumbs of info I have seen have me drooling...

4. One day I berate simulacrum producers and the OSR-at-large for neglecting the Froghemoth and the next day a true scholar and gentleman of the aforementioned OSR provides an open game content version for us all to use.

5. More Black Ziggurat sightings: The Mutant Future and a partial cross-section of Ziqquratu Ziyaret.

6. I make a post about unique spellbooks and than one of you wise-acres has to go and beat me to making a Random Magic Book Name Generator. Also Trollsmyth went and provided links to further examples of such books.

Hopefully my next post will actually have some Planet Algol related content instead of blogosphere/meta- echo chambering (as much I love the "echo chamber" effect!).

Further Sightings of the Black Ziggurat!

Under the Dying Sun (and a very meta- manifestation as well!)
The Ebon Zikkuract (a very literal tesseract manifestation and now we have the word "zikkuract!")
The Black Ziggurat of Riskail (You know Riskail? That hot, new weird fantasy setting with all the talented writing and artwork...plus their Black Ziggurat has a Shoggoth!)
And what's This? Only the Black Ziggurat of GREYHAWK! (Which also contains an imprisoned Satan-figure and a lightsabre...)
EDIT: I'm hating myself for forgetting The Black Ziggurat of the Mutant Future!